Life and Death, by The Software Toolworks, is a realistic simulation of the life of a hospital surgeon. An abdominal surgeon to be specific.

You start your day seeing patients on your ward, diagnosing their illnesses and occasionally having to operate. Every decision you make can have life or death implications for your patients, as you will soon discover when you start playing this game and the bodies begin mounting up…

Eventually you will get the hang of diagnosis – prodding abdomens and doing x-rays – but soon enough your first appendectomy will arrive and – like most first time Life and Death players – you’ll probably begin to panic and wonder what the hell you’re supposed to do! Not panic – that’s what you’re supposed to do. And make straight incisions. Oh, and don’t forget to scrub and put your gloves on before you operate. Oh, and anaesthetise the patient! And antibiotics… Quite a few things to remember…

Later on, after you’ve performed the initial operations successfully, they’ll give you more complex surgery to perform. Just as long as the body count isn’t too high beforehand…

Life and Death was initially published in 1988 by Mindscape. It won quite a few awards for its interesting and unique approach to gaming. It’s still a brilliant game to play now, if you can find a copy. Very few games have managed to pull this kind of thing off, tastefully and accurately. Life and Death manages it in a simple, compelling way.

More: Life and Death on Wikipedia