Paramedic Emergency
Simulator games seem to be all the rage now, from Police to doctors; players are able to simulate these many jobs in various games. The latest of these is Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator, in it players will be able to experience all the tension and drama of being a paramedic. Players will be in charge of answering calls, providing initial treatment to patients and then making sure they get back to the hospital. I mean what could go wrong with a game simulating a city akin to San Diego replete with pedestrians and a real-life traffic simulation?
MSRP: $29.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
Taking place in the fictional city of San Pelicano, Ambulance Life has three different districts that players can respond to a myriad of emergencies in. Beginning in the downtown area, players will be responding to car crashes, people becoming sick and things like that. Once players open up the districts, they will be able to work a shift in a specific area, or deal with a mix of the three for all kinds of emergency calls. Players will begin at one of the ambulance stations across the city and will have to pull out into traffic to get to their patient, this is where issues begin to arise.
For starters the graphics in Ambulance Life gives off anything but live, the various people, patients and even the main characters that players can choose from all have a lifeless look to them. Mouth animations vary from being semi-real to just someone chewing gum and it’s all off putting when you speaking to a character. And then there is navigating the streets to get to an emergency; well, it works well when it wants too. Just as in the real-world players will need to turn on their sirens in order to get through the busy streets. As players drive around the AI drivers will make a lane for them to get through but sometimes it’s not big enough and you will side swap cars. Other times as players are speeding new cars will just spawn in which causes the other cars to react and starts a whole chain reaction of accidents.
After bulldozing their way to the patient players will need to hop out and being treatment. The usual way all of them goes is you will look them over to ensure they can be moved; this is done by focusing on points of their body; that info is then logged into a handy little iPad like device. Once they are stabilized you will put them on the gurney, which is incredible awkward to control, and you will lose points banging the patient around on it. Once you get the gurney aligned with the back of the ambulance, the patient can be loaded in. At this point players get in and will have access to 17 instruments to diagnose 36 different conditions that patients can be afflicted with. Once stabilized the fun of getting to a hospital begins, players can cause their patients great harm if they swerve too much or hit any objects. A task made near impossible by the janky way the game moves.
Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator isn’t a bad game, it’s just a janky one. I had a good time diagnosing patients and honestly the drives to-and-from became a source of unintended comedy. I mean why would the pedestrians cross the street when an ambulance is coming down with sirens blazing going 80 MPH; I don’t really expect an answer, but I asked myself this question a lot while playing. I really wish the game looked better, even on my Series X things like characters hair were translucent and it was really off-putting at times. If you don’t mind some jank in your games and/or were curious what paramedics go through; then this game might tickle your fancy.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
