Theme Hospital

"Live out your dreams of running a hospital! If you have them...."

Theme Hospital (brought to you by the lovely people at Bullfrog) puts the player in the shoes of an entrepreuner's shoes, one who's line of work is running a hospital. It's the sequal to the great game ''Theme Park'' which let you build and maintain an amusement park. Playing this game requires a good bit of business knowledge, some building design and a lot of good sense. But even if you lack all three of these Theme Hospital is still an extremely playable and immensely enjoyable game.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is the stuff dreams are made of. Theme Hospital takes the boring and quite anal job of being in control of a hospital and transfored it into something you'll gladully waste a few hours on. At the start of every level the player is presented with a floor plan, an empty floor plan. It's up to you to decide where you want all the rooms to go and how big they're going to be. It's up to you to hire and fire staff and tell them where exactly to go. It's up to you to make sure nobody dies.
To finish a level there's certain criteria that must be met. You have to have a good reputation in the surrounding are, a certain amount of patients must be cured, you're hospital has to be pretty darn good and worth a lot, and most importantly you must be stinking rich. Finishing a level will see you with an invitation to a bigger, better and more difficult hospital to run. Failing will see you're little run end up on the front page of the tabloids in scandal form.
Theres quite a large number of rooms that you'll have to squeeze into your small building and tight budget. There's a whole set of rooms needed for diagnosing patients and another set for treating the poor blighters. Then if you're feeling generous you'll have to sneak in a Staff Room, Toilets, Ward, Surgery, Research Room, Teaching Room, and maybe a clinic or two. Good Luck!
All of the illnesses that are brought into your hospital are rather unique and always good for a laugh, some patients may have bloaty head, this is where their heads are inflated to ridiculous proportions, or maybe they'll have television personalities and dress up like Elvis. Some other diseases you're more than likely to be presented with are Slack Tongue, Spare Ribs, The Squits, Invisibility, Kidney Beans or the dreaded Uncommon Cold.
Along your way through the game there are various situations that will pop-up to make the game more interesting. These may involve an epidemic, where a large number of people will be flown to the hospital with the same illness and have to be treated promptly, for a big cash sum of course. There's even a cute little mini-game to be found here, killing rats in an empty hospital is surprisingly fun and addictive.
Since you're in charge of all the finances it means that you can completely customise everything. Set prices for all the various procedures and you can make a killing (terible pun), and if things are looking grim then it's a trip to the loan shark for you. In the later levels it becomes ridiculously hectic, and everything can get quite overwhelming, you'll be trying to perform five or six tasks at once and it's more than likely that you'll get considerably grumpy.
Overall, the gameplay of Theme Hospital is terribly innovative and will provide entertainment for most. Running a hospital however, can turn out to be a daunting task and it takes a lot of practice to progress in this game.

GRAPHICS
The graphics of Theme Hospital are beautifully designed. Everything is done in cartoon form and everything has a nice range of detail. There's a huge number of templates that the patients are designed from, people of all size and shape have an equal chance of filling ill here. They're all animated differently, from the little lady with the huge tongue that limps around to the fat stuck-up VIP who walks around likes he own the place. Some of them look so poorly that one can't help but feel genuinely sorry for them.
There isn't much in the way of backgrounds to comment on. There's grass and there's road, and for whatever it's worth they look half decent. All of the rooms, whether they be for diagnosis, treatment or otherwise look great. The machines in these rooms, no matter how sophisticated or primitive they may be, always have a bit of an overwhelming feel about them, you just feel that going near one could result in the loss of a limb or serious bodily damage on your behalf.
Overall, the graphics are bright, colourful and make it extremely easy for the player to see what's going on inside his creation. There were a few improvements that could have been made but as a whole they're a fantastic package.

SOUND
The sound, whilst not having the class or overall greatness contained in the visual department is done reasonably well. There are a number of tracks played in the background that will loop over (about half an hours worth overall), these tunes don't assault the ears in any way and pave the way for an enjoyable gaming experience. You'll have to play a huge amount of Theme Hospital to tire of these songs.
The sound effects do a huge amount to the game in the way of immersing the player, the receptionist of your hospital always has something witty and clever to say (eg- Patients please refrain from dying in the corridor, or The manager is cheating! [thats if you're cheating]) and will always keep you amused. All of the patients and various machines will sound if they're in the screen, if you get an epidemic then you'll be treated to the sound of 50 barfing patients all at once, JOY! If there was anything to be added here then it would have to be more speech from the various characters, the Doctors and Nurses are too quite for their own good (a pleasant change perhaps but there was room for improvement).
Overall, the sound doesn't quite excel or offer anything new, theres enough in the CD to stop you from turning the speakers off. The sound complements the graphics pretty darn well to make quite a formiddable audio/video team.

BAH!
Theme Hospital does have a downside and it's a pretty major one, but one that doesn't affect you're enjoyment too much, but it's best that you were warned. It's one of the best but also the most irritating jobs, the of handling your staff. First of all you must cycle through the list of wannabe doctors and choose one that looks sane, easy enough. Then he'll be placed in the room of your choice and began treating patients, but then for some reason the doctors in your hospital go stupid and wander around. To add to the frustration an announcement will go over calling a doctor to his previous room, this will drag another doctor from his room meaning that queue will need to wait longer. But it gets even better. When that doctor leaves his room an announcement will go over for the room he just left, so when that doctor arrives at his new position he'll leave right away for his old room. Finding that room taken with a newly hired doctor he'll start wandering around, this will leave you with 5 empty rooms, 10 wandering doctors and huge wages to pay. This is probably the only aggrivation contained in Theme Hospital but it will annoy you enough that there's really no need for another.

LIFESPAN
There is a lot of replayability to be found here, you can while away numerous hours of your life on Theme Hospital without even glancing at the clock. There's a lot of hospitals to be built and it's guaranteed that you won't finish the game without failing many times. Even if you've spent ages on a hospital and finally gone flat broke you'll want to start again with a fresh hospital and a new budget. Each time you start a level the end result will never be the same, this makes for a lot of replays and a positively huge lifespan. Theme Hospital should keep you entertained for months at the least.

FUN FACTOR
The fun factor offered in Theme Hospital is surprisingly good. Continually starting from scratch is something that should never be tired of, and this is the only game that i've ever seen that in. The variety of patients that come in and illnesses that they carry will provide a good laugh and even MORE FUN. This game is just one of the rare ones that will be as fun a year down the track as the day that you bought it.

CHALLENGE
There is a perfect amount of challenge contained in this game. The levels offer a steady learning curve, the first level being a breeze to pass and the last seemingly impossible. There isn't a level or task that can't be passed once you've got a good bit of practice under your belt. Even for complete newbies there's a great tutorial to introduce you into the business of running a hospital. And then if you're still too shocking at Theme Hospital there's always a guy popping out of the corner to give you some good advice or a helping hand.

THE FINAL PARAGRAPH
Overall, Theme Hospital is a gaming masterpiece. It offers a huge amount of humour, variety and customisation. Who would have thought that one would be able to totallyu immerse themselves inside a hospital environment? Not many I bet, but playing this game made me change my mind on that. If you haven't tried this or the equally good ''The Sims'' then you have absolutely no idea on the fun you're missing out on. You should go out and buy one, perhaps even both of these classics, you won't be sorry that you did.
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GOOD POINTS
- It looks and sounds like a dream
- Theme Hospital gives you complete control over nearly EVERYTHING
- I haven't met a person who's tired of this game yet

NOT SO GOOD POINTS
- At times it seems like you need 5 mice to complete all the tasks
- If you haven't noticed yet, I really hate what those doctors do to me
- Ummmm.....that's all
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GRAPHICS - 10/10
SOUND - 9/10
GAMEPLAY - 10/10
LIFESPAN - 10/10
FUN FACTOR - 9/10
CHALLENGE - 10/10
MINUS - 0.5 FOR AGGRAVATION
OVERALL - 9.5/10

FINAL RATING - 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/03/00, Updated 09/10/01