Nurse, the joypad!': the eight greatest medical video games

"Created by lone developer Rick Levine, this early oddity shrank players down and put them into the bloodstream of a sick patient where they had to blast diseased cells and unclog arteries. Clearly inspired by the movie Fantastic Voyage, the title features strange, colourful, almost psychedelic depictions of human anatomy. An Atari 2600 copycat, actually entitled Fantastic Voyage, turned up a few months later, but with its comparatively dull, simple visuals, it was dead on arrival."

"This point-and-click abdominal surgery simulation was groundbreaking in its realism. Players had to diagnose a variety of conditions (kidney stones! aortic aneurysm!), before ordering tests and scans and finally operating while an ECG display showed your victim's sorry, patient's heart rate. If you felt it wasn't challenging enough, the sequel moved on to brain surgery."

"The asylum has always been a popular trope for horror games, from the imaginatively titled 1981 adventure Asylum to the Silent Hill series. I'm going for this disturbing psychological thriller in which a patient wakes up in a seemingly abandoned sanatorium, his memory gone, his face completely bandaged."

Hospital games have offered tense, often gruesome interactive medical experiences for over 40 years. Early titles like Microsurgeon shrink players into a patient’s bloodstream to blast diseased cells and unclog arteries, using colorful depictions of human anatomy. Life & Death delivers point-and-click abdominal surgery with diagnosis, ordering tests and scans, and performing operations while monitoring heart rate via an ECG display, with a sequel expanding into brain surgery. Sanitarium presents a psychological horror premise set in a seemingly abandoned sanatorium, where a bandaged patient wakes up with memory missing. These games reflect enduring interest in medical drama, procedural pressure, and unsettling hospital settings.

Read at www.theguardian.com