House M. D. - First Look

Legacy Entertainment first announced their intention to release a computer game based on NBC Universal’s acclaimed drama, House M.D., at E3 last summer. Alltern8 was lucky enough to get their hands on a preview version of the game recently to see what it was all about.

It turns out that House M.D. is essentially a puzzle game. Play is divided into five episodes which are structured in a similar manner to the TV show. In each episode you the player are presented with a medical case which you must initially diagnose correctly before following the case through assessment to the appropriate medical treatment.

Each step of the medical process is represented by a mini-game of some kind – it could be test of manual dexterity, or memory, or it could simply be a case of beating the clock. Most of the mini-games are fairly easy to complete, and clearly the goal isn’t to befuddle the player, but to simply make them gain an appreciation for what it might be like to be a real doctor. If you fail at a particular challenge, the game simply lets you have another go, although you may end up scoring poorly if you take too many runs at it.

To provide the storytelling element, each mini-game is followed by one or two scenes of dialogue which involve the patient and/or one or more regular characters from the TV show. Although the game tries hard to capture the dry wit that House himself is famous for, sadly the dialogue is presented as text only – there is no real voice-over at all. Real images of the actors are also not used - the pictures throughout the game are instead drawn in a cartoon faux-realistic style.