Trauma Team vs. Grey’s Anatomy: Why video games are better than TV

For the uninitiated, Trauma Team is a game for the Nintendo Wii. Grey’s Anatomy is a TV I can’t discuss with my wife because the conversation always ends in divorce threats. What do either of these have to do with the Macintosh? Not much. But chances are that many of you Mac gamers out there have your own Trauma Team—say, World of Warcraft or Call of Duty or Leisure Suit Larry—and through them, you’ve come to understand why video games are better than television.

I made a case for this last week over at our sister site: Gamertell.com. I published it there because it was Trauma Team that finally helped me realize why video games are so much more entertaining that what TV is allowed to offer us. Looking back, though, I could pit any of the Neverwinter Nights games against the dreck that Syfy offers us these days. Call of Duty stands up against the war dramas we see on pay TV. Even indie games like Penumbra are more effective than what they do than most made for TV horror.

I don’t care how creative people pretend television dramas are, because they’re not.

Even the majority of cable shows that aren’t driven by ad dollars mostly amount to nothing more than hotel room art. Sure, it’s sometimes pretty, but do those paintings ever really impress you? Do they catch you off guard, push your tastes beyond the norm and maybe expand your concept of what art should be? No. They’re safe. They’re expected. And as much as the television industry would like for you to think otherwise, the greatest successes happen because the audience is comfortable with what they’re seeing. The ending results are expected.

Trauma Team helped me realize this because I could easily compare it to the aforementioned Grey’s Anatomy. My wife’s love for this show and my intense dislike for not only it but for everything it stands for and represents has led to arguments so heated and dramatic you would think they’d been conceived by the Grey’s Anatomy staff writers themselves (only without the popular lesbian themes and no RPGs wedged in anyone’s belly). Because Tieraney may one day read this, I won’t get into why I feel Grey’s (as the kids like to call it) is the most insulting television show ever created, and I will instead focus on why Trauma Team is so much better. It again takes me back to that one word…

Imagination.

So head on over to Gamertell.com to see if you agree. If given two hours of free time on a week night, would rather turn on the television or the Mac? Play with the TV remote or the Wiimote?

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