Grey's Anatomy: The Video Game is clearly geared toward die-hard fans of the show who just can't get enough of the mating rituals at Seattle Grace Hospital. However, its weird assortment of minigames seem symbolic to some of the weird turns the show has taken this season, and casual fans of the show will require a lot of patience to wade through each scene. That's too bad, because the writing and production values are pretty good for a game based on a television show.
Presentation - 7.0
Graphics - 7.0
Sound - 6.0
Gameplay - 6.0
Lasting Appeal - 5.5
Overall -
Like your doctors beautiful, rife with sexual politics, and invasive surgery tinged with witty banter? Then watch the TV show; this game's a disaster. Blending soap opera and surgery, both sides of the doctor coin are dire minigame affairs. The ultra-simple ops are too bitty to hold any challenge – like WarioWare meets Trauma Center. When kidney transplants remind you of GTA's hotwiring, something's gone wrong.
Emotional bits, on the other hand, are literal representations of moral dilemmas. Wafting away clouds of doubt with the stylus and dumping lovers by tearing them out of photos would be endearingly dumb if it wasn't so limp. Not even the pretty faces remain; Dr. Bailey morphs into a squat Yoda figure and lovely Izzie Stevens looks like a victim of botched plastic surgery. The diagnosis? Dead on arrival.
From the article: "The game is laid out much like a TV show is, where it is divided into episodes, acts, and scenes. Each scene is very short, maybe taking around 3 minutes for the longer ones. All of the scenes in the game consist of a bunch of still images of CG models of the characters in the show. It looks like they are stills from some video, probably from the other versions of the game. However, in the DS version, there is no video or voice work. Everything is done through on screen text. And it's all very slow. You know those little old ladies who can barely see over their steering wheels and drive about 4 miles an hour? Think about how frustratingly slow driving behind them is and you might get a sense of how slow this game is."
Gamebosh writes: "The TV series Grey's Anatomy has been running since 2005 and over its five seasons we've seen flirting, bleeding and firing of cast members...but mostly flirting. The relationship conflicts among the students practicing medicine at Seattle Grace Hospital are much like in any other medical drama. What separates Grey's Anatomy from, say, E.R. Is a higher level of irony and greater emphasis on the staff's love lives.
The title refers A) to its main character Dr. Meredith Grey and B) to the popular medical book Gray's Anatomy, but this is really where the wit stops. The lure of the show is basically to see who will sleep with who, who'll cock up in surgery, and most importantly whether Meredith will shut up already and take Dr. Darcy - alright, Dr. Derek Shepherd - up the aisle (Matron!)."
