What is best in life? To play computer games, cut up their virtual people, and hear the lamentation of their women! And few games let you do this in a more awesome manner than Life & Death.

Developed and published by The Software Toolworks in 1988 for DOS PCs, and ported to a slew of other machines in the few years following. You are the surgeon in Life & Death. The abdominal surgeon, to be specific. Presumably with the ability to make life and death calls as well as disconnect your head from your body to look down at patients with three of your decapitated staff members.

Note: I've rearranged the sentences to improve readability while maintaining the original content and wording.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enWhat is best in life?To play computer games,cut up their virtual people,and hear the lamentation of their women!And few games let you do this in amore awesome manner than Life & Death.Developed and published by TheSoftware Toolworks in 1988 for DOS PCsand ported to a slew of othermachines in the few years following.YOU are the surgeon in Life & Death.The abdominal surgeon, to be specific.Presumably with the abilityto make life and death callsas well as disconnect your head from your bodyto look down at patients with threeof your decapitated staff members.\"Warning! Do not buy or play thisprogram if you are faint-of-heart!\"Frick, don't even look at the backof the box if you're faint-of-heart.Geez, dude!Though, oddly enough, you'll nevercome to touching a brain in this game.You'll have to play Life & Death 2for any cranial manipulation.Inside the box, you get arespectable amount of goodies,starting with the game on either 5¼-inchor 3½-inch floppies,depending on the version,a manual covering the various proceduresand medical things you'll be encountering,an Operating Procedures Manualproviding information specificto the port of the game you have,a letter from Dr. David Lindstrom,the fictional chief of surgery of thefictional Toolworks General Hospital,which simply covers the contents of thegame box and a summary of the gameplay,and a small book titled\"The History of Surgery,\"which, oddly enough,covers the history of surgeryin real life.Although, it's interestingto note that throughout thisand the rest of the documentation,it's made abundantly clearthat Life & Death is a gamemeant only for fun, not for education.In other words, SoftwareToolworks had a legal teamthat wanted to be suretheir bases were covered,in case some idiot triedto actually perform surgeryon someone becausethey played this videogame.Ugh, sad times we live in.It also comes with a code wheelthat's cleverly shaped like a pager,which acts as the game's copy protection.And yes, it even comes with afreaking mask and latex gloves,so you can cosplay while youtear open virtual people's bodies.Beard not required, but totally recommended.I'll be showing the Apple IIGS version of the gamebecause it's the best overallport of the game that I've played,and the IIGS is just made of win.Life & Death starts off with theimage of a dead person's feet.Mmm, appetizing stuff.You're then greeted by the admissions nurse,who forces you to sign inbefore getting your malpractice on.You can continue a previousgame or start a new one,and after this, you're toldto report to medical school.But it's a good idea to visit the staff room first.Yes, the S-T-A-F room.Freaking spelling error is on everyversion of the game I've played, too,which is just unfortunate.But hey, you're a doctor,not an English professor!In here, you can *not*put the moves on the nurse,but you can click theclipboard on the filing cabinetto change the game settings.There are options to adjust the difficulty,enable Nightmare Mode,patient speech options,remove a saved game,and even make your own custom initials.Yes, you can draw anythingyou want in this little box,which will be your officialdoctor's signature in-game.Make sure it's fabulous.You can also interact witha few other things in the room,like this computer offeringa decent deal on an Apple IIC,assuming it's complete and in nice workingorder from a non-smoking, non-pet household,as well as the option on analyzeand swap hospital staff members.You'll want a different team dependingon the type of surgery you're performing,so coming back here is a good idea,at least if you want a lowerbody count at the end of the day.Then it's off to med school,which is just a simple presentationon an anachronisticallyhigh-tech interactive blackboard.Just click through and read whatever it says,or don't, and suffer the consequences.That's it. You're a doctor!Man, people always make it seemlike it takes years of schoolingand tons of hard work tobecome a doctor, but not here.Just click a chalkboard and you're readyto hand out drugs and cut people up.Eh, well, you'll have to solvethe in-game copy protection firstby answering a page when it arrives.Use that little code wheel in the game boxto decipher and enter the correct phone number,and you're good to go from that point onward.You're then given your first patient,so click on their door and enter their room.They'll be lying on the bed,often eyeing you seductively,and you're free to do with them as you please.While you can go ahead and dopretty much anything you want,ideally you'll want to have them show some skinso you can poke at them repeatedly,palpate their parts over and over,until you get an idea of where the pain is,if there is any.If you've studied the documentationthat came with the game box,you'll be able to get a good idea ofwhat is the correct course of action.Make your choice, sign your name,and then see what happens.If you were incorrect andit wasn't a terminal illness,Peter Graves lookalike here will let you know.If it was terminal,then you'll get this image of the corpseyou've just created lying in the morgue.In either case, you're sent back to medical school,told what you did wrong,and let loose back into the hospital corridorsto wreak havoc once more.The goal is to *not* be a complete quackand correctly diagnoseand treat a bunch of patientswithout killing everyone.But then, that's only if youwant to play by the rules.And you know what? Screw rules!Some dude comes in with slight discomfort?Put him under the UltraScanand see what his insides look like.Some chick comes in with nausea?Whip out the x-ray and radiate that poor person.Some unfortunate soulcomes in with abdominal painand most likely just needs to fart really badly?Sign off on an operationand cut your name in his fleshand inject him with everylethal drug you can find.That'll teach him to eat beans!In Life & Death, your namemay as well be Gregory Housebecause as many times as you break the rules,you're back in the hospital the next day\"practicing\" medicine.Alright, so it's not all fun and gamesas you don't actually progress at allif you just dick around withscalpels and injections all day.You really do want to useyour logic and knowledgeto make correct diagnoses,or else it's just goingto be the same exactflood of kidney stones,bacterial infections and farts.Eventually, you'll get somethingmore serious that will require surgery,like appendicitis or aneurisms.You'll want to mark these patients for surgery,grab the proper staff members,and head into the operating room.This is where the \"meat\" ofthe game is, so to speak,and also where it's easiest to screw upand get yourself sent back to school.For each procedure, there is a specificroutine you'll want to go through.For instance, you'll always wantto make sure to wash your hands,put on gloves, apply enough antiseptic,drape the operation site and leaveyourself enough room to work,anesthetize the patient, etc.Then it's a matter of knowing the tools to use,the incisions to make, the correct way to cut,the correct speed to cut,what to do if the patient experiences bradycardiaor premature ventricular contraction,and much more.Honestly, I love this section of the game.Sure, it's crazy stressful and often brutally difficult,but it's incredibly rewarding when you gather yourself,steady your nerves and pull off a successful surgery.Conversely, it's also sadistically rewardingto inject a patient with acombination of lidocaine and atropinewhen you've botched things beyond repair anyway.And that's Life & Death for ya.Diseases get more complex andthe increased difficulty modesprovide an even greater challenge,but it's really the same basic gameplaythroughout the entire rest of the game.It's not only good for a laughwhen you're just going aroundkilling more people than Josef Mengele,but it's also genuinely fun and challengingto properly diagnose and treat patients.Although the Apple IIGS is probably the best version,it isn't the only one.The Amiga port isn't too bad, either,with some similarly colorfulgraphics and realistic sound.But it's missing some content, too,like various room illustrationsand being able to customize your signature.The original DOS PC release is also pretty good,although it's easily the worstas far as graphics and sound go.But it has all the silly stuff that I enjoylike the custom signatures,and even the ability to go absolutelycrazy with cutting tools during surgery,allowing you to cut in any design you want.Whatever version you choose, though,I'd recommend it entirely,as you'll be in for someawesome professional negligenceand invasive medical treatment.\n"