Theme Hospital

The Good
A simple concept of build-and-maintain your very own hospital, but somehow, it's highly addictive. Fun and weird illnesses walk in onto your hospital property (such as spare rib, bloaty head, people with slack tongue), and it's your job to invite, diagnose, comfort, heal and make sure the patient goes home with a smile - in that order. Sound easy? Soon your hospital becomes so popular, it's simply a huge mass of patients walking about - but be careful - lack of warmth, bad surroundings and no seating can mean that your development turns into a rat-infested sick-covered hospital. Keep the regular VIPs happy and make sure you keep that budget tight!

But what is the good highlights of this game? Well, there are many. Comedic cutscenes of your hospitals' development give you laughs, making sure you employ the right amount of staff and their attitude is a welcome challenge, trying to keep your hospital warm, well-stocked, and smart is also a cute little addictive thing. The graphics aren't too bad, but you have to remember; this game doesn't focus on graphics - it focuses on gameplay, fun and addictive stuff (how many times have i said "addictive"? I just can't stress it enough!).

Realism is also a great factor in this game; for instance, in most games (like "Theme Park", for example) all employees stay in their job roles 24/7 without hassle, but this game adds realism and fun challenge by making your employees more than just "people who do stuff" - they need good surroundings to work in, good cash pay to live on, and time to chill out in the staff room. Same goes for your patients; they need to be cared for in the same ways. This game, despite its graphical downfall, it highly makes up for it by challenges, gameplay, comedy and pure fun - and that's exactly what games should be; fun.

The few levels don't seem like much, but they are fun and long and that's what keeps you playing - knowing that you'll get your money's worth out of this game, and the fun you deserve. The one-off rat level is also adrenaline-pumped and a sort of "relief break". Buying new property, moving and starting anew, and organizing your scheme into the best and ultimate hospital is a challenge (i've also said "challenge" quite a few times, too) but is sure fun.

The Bad
If anything, the graphics are the only thing that were bad. Maybe a first-person experience as a patient may have been a nice little extra, but the graphics are the only thing to be improved on. Seriously though, if this game were ever going to be remade, it would need better graphics, about one or two more levels, and possibly more structures, employees, equipment, etc. but that's probably all.

The Bottom Line
For fans of simulations and people who love to build and control things, you'll love this game. Like I said above, the graphics are the only downfall, but the highlights surely make up for everything. Due to its age, it can be found cheap but may be hard to find slightly. But honestly, one of the best simulations ever on the PlayStation and PC, until "The Sims" can along, but some reckon Theme Hospital is still even better, and at the end of the day, this game is pure fun and excitement for those who love games. If real hospital managers played this, their real-life hospitals would surely become great.

The Good
A lot of people find the sound and music for this game irritating. Personally, I love it, from the "Essex girl" accent of the receptionist's announcements to the incredibly catchy music (my personal favourites being "On the Mend" and "Fortune"). The graphics were crisp, bright and a good example of what pixel art could still do in a game even in the 3D era. The humour was spot on, too.

The Bad
This may just be me not being very good at the game, but I found the learning curve to be somewhat steep, and I was pretty much done for after about six levels (the level where Baldness is introduced was my eventual stumbling block, although I had serious difficulty before that).

The reason I stopped playing though was because the game began crashing on me, and eventually ceased to load. A shame, because I still enjoyed the game even though I was having a tough time of it.

The Bottom Line
A fun game with wonderfully retro sound and visuals and a wicked sense of humour, but watch out for the learning curve.

The Good
The first few levels are very fun. They're simple, relatively easy levels that don't ask too much of the player. The player gets to learn new things, try new equipment, and see new animations. It's not overwhelming, and the map isn't too large, so you don't have to divide your attention too much, while still having plenty to do. The money you make is the money you keep, and all in all you can see your hospital improving and getting better, which is very rewarding. It's also very humorous, reading about diseases, seeing the animations of doctors treating patients other things as the in-game characters walk around, and hearing the announcer.

The software also comes with one of the best manuals I've ever read. I ended up printing it off and reading it front to back. It's informative, humorous, and gives a lot of good information that helps you in the game.

The Bad
Around halfway through the game, something bad happens. It gets aggravating. Every level you get reintroduced to the same diseases, so you have to see the fax about Constipation at least half a dozen times. The announcements start repeating. The hospital gets too big for you to really manage, even though it has to be that big in order to get the money and reputation you need to finish the level. And worse, the creators added the stupidest function in the entire game: epidemics.

Basically you have to choose between whipping out all the money you've made in the past 20 minutes, or start a race to vaccinate and cure everyone with the epidemic, which will clean you out too if you don't get everyone. Worse, these happen about once every 15 minutes, and there's nothing you can do about it, so the only way to make money is the aggravating equivalent to tacking back and forth, trying to make more money between epidemics than they take away, and hoping for the rare times that the epidemics are small enough to be contained.

Meanwhile, since the hospitals are so big by this point, invariably one section or another will get covered ankle-deep in invalids' barf, more than any custodian will clean without a half dozen pay raises. And you know what? It says the difficulty is set on "medium" in the beginning of the game, but there's no way to adjust the difficulty, so banish all hope of putting the game on easy and maybe enjoying it until the end (or maybe just reaching it, without enjoying it).

Added to that is a list of nonsenses, errors, and forward compatibility troubles.

You'd expect a game like this to be nonsensical, but sometimes it went too far. I'd say the biggest nonsense was the title. "Theme Hospital"? What the heck? You'd expect a theme park, or a theme restaurant maybe, but who in their right mind would want to go to a "theme hospital"? Granted, some of the people with hilarious illnesses might go, but it seems others would rather take their chances with a regular hospital, especially those with Constipation or The Runs, two illnesses I'm sure other hospitals could take care of. But further, what perchance, is the theme? Space ship? Western? Under the Sea? Leaders of the World? No, nothing like that, it's just a regular hospital that's just wacky. There's really no theme there, and no way you can give it one.

Besides the name, there's also the time. Months pass in a few minutes, but some patients need to stay there for a half hour. Even the simple invisible woman who just needs a swig of drugs will spend a few minutes for diagnosis then treatment. Doesn't anyone ever eat? Don't their families wonder where their loved ones have been for months? But I guess I can't really single the game out, because after all many managerial games, from Roller Coaster Tycoon to Black and White, Sim City, and 1503 AD have inconsistent time spans. Also, there's a relative lack of diversity in the characters. All of the doctors are either Northwest European (English, Germanic, Lapland, etc) or African decent. There are no Spanish or Asian doctors; while all doctors are male and all nurses are female (I'll have them know that my brother-in-law is a male nurse). Patient variance is only a little better. I understand they probably had to make separate actions and character animations for each person, but they could certainly have made a few more. Still, it beats the heck out of the "everyone is a white, 12 year old boy exactly 1 meter tall" philosophy of Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Also, I never got the concept behind the whole "epidemic" thing. What's so shameful about saying that you've discovered some of the patients in your hospital carry infectious strains of illness? And for that matter, how do you have a transmittable case of the runs, invisibility, or kidney stones, for that matter?

The game was pretty low on bugs, but there were a few. The first I noticed was this one time, a very hairy man (many levels before this became a condition in the game) was standing in the hall, blinking quickly (I mean like blinking in and out of existence, not batting his lashes quickly). I clicked on him, he separated into two characters, and the game crashed. Second, people sometimes pass right through each other rather than going around. Third, the staff sometimes inexplicably doesn’t go to their staff rooms well beyond their recommended mark for going there, and reach their maximum fatigue and demand a pay increase. Maybe I'm just missing something, and maybe it was intentional, but it was never mentioned in the manual and I think it's a bug. Fourth, if you're carrying someone while a fax comes in, the game crashes. Fifth, sometimes you get a fax with very nasty news in it, but the fax marks it "hurrah!".

Finally, there are some things that just make this a bad game to play 10 years after it was made. I played it on a Windows XP, but I'm guessing Windows Vista would be even worse. First, the autorun doesn't work. It tells you to "Proceed", but nothing in the autorun will actually start the game. So, after you install it, if you put the CD back in the autorun is just an annoyance, because you'll just have to run it yourself anyway. Second, sometimes when you exit the game, Windows tells you that "an error has occurred and the program needs to close". Third, there's absolutely no music. For me at least, there was nothing I could do. Music was turned on in the game and its volume up. Songs were picked out. Heck, I even want to the install location and found the songs. But they were in an outdated "XMI File" format, so no program outside of Theme Hospital would play them either. So, no music for me while I was playing the game.

The Bottom Line
Years ago, I played it, got to about the 4th level, then probably went away and played something else. More recently, I reinstalled it, and got to about the 7th level or so, but grew so aggravated at the excessively large hospitals, the epidemics, the vomit waves, the expensive equipment, and the fragile reputation that I just gave it up and uninstalled it. That's the way this game goes. It starts off pretty fun, but as you move up to higher levels, it becomes more and more complicated (much faster than anyone could ever get better at the game, so it doesn't even follow Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of "flow", meaning the learning curve is way too steep for the increase in difficulty [or the patience of the player]), up until the point you could get more enjoyment out of doing something else than the aggravation trying to continue would cause.

Added to that is a small list of things that stretch the game's suspension of disbelief too far and minor errors that add to aggravation. And added to that are signs that show the game hasn't aged well. If you find a copy of this game, you'll be lucky if it actually runs on your computer. And if it does run, you'll be lucky if it runs well, instead of getting errors in the game or not being able to hear the game's music.

Bottom line: it's kind of fun in the beginning, but gets worse as you progress through the game. Also, by now it might be too old to run or run well on newer computers.

The Good
Absolutely everything. This game is a masterpiece and stands out in my games collection as one of my top 10 of all time. It's in the top 5 even.

You are given an empty building, and build a hospital. Starts off small, with a few doctors, general diagnostic, reception, pharmacy and a few other necessities. Then you get up in the levels and wow - that becomes one huge hospital. You buy more land and buildings and before you know it, you own a hospital empire.

I liked the challenge of this game, it wasn't just what it appeared to be - building hospitals. It was much more, as you had to research illnesses, keep the hospital clean, plants alive, patients happy, staff happy and the bank manager too.

The Bad
Not much really. It was excellent. I think it was probably that I had no manual and took a while to get used to it. But once you learn about everything you need, you can pretty much own it - easier said than done ;)

The Bottom Line
Such an original idea, a totally classic game - I adore it. Playing it on the 19' screen with a Playstation is another added bonus.

Get your hands on this game, its addictive and you'll love it.

The Good
Everything about the game avoids being dry and long-winded, leaving the serious approach to Civilization and the like, and ensuring that the general appeal of the hospital idea isn't wasted. The graphics are bright and cartoony, and the sound effects enlivened by some comic speech ("Will patients please try not to be sick in the corridors?" is a good example).

The largely-fictional illnesses are a good idea, enlivened by a few amusing diagnosis sheets and some entertaining animations of the specialised ones being cured. The combination of ward and operating theatre, plus the multiple uses for psychiatry and pharmacy, put a premium on hospital planning.

The importance of money within the game, and the occasional compromising of patient safety in response for money (such as epidemic cover-ups and refusing to treat risky patients if you have a 100% cure rate for the year (and need the £10,000 bonus this offers)) present a neat satire on commercial medicine.

Several new features are added as you play through the levels, including training staff, which is a minor feature on level 4 but a HUGE deal on level 5, as the local doctors are all trainees. Levels which are prone to earthquakes and epidemics add some variety as well.

The Bad
There is a slight unfinished feel to the game, evident in a few oversights, bugs and 'features'. It appears possible for other hospitals to buy the land that is available to you, but (having got as far as level 8) this doesn't seem to happen. The UK box has a sticker crudely obscuring details of a multi-player mode which was dropped at the last minute. Some training-related messages appear garbled. Objects occasionally get stuck, which makes it harder to adjust your hospital's design to accommodate a new room. Considering that it was released in April, with the first Dungeon Keeper mere weeks later, there was no excuse not to resolve these issues.

The epidemics don't work as well as they should. If a patient leaves the hospital, the Health Authority are immediately notified. Fine, but this also often happens when a patient moves from one building within the hospital to another.

A few things such as setting the temperature of the radiators are the kind of Micro-Management that should be avoided in games like this.

The Bottom Line
Superficially a sequel to Theme Park (hence the nonsensical title), Theme Hospital sets you as manager of a small-town hospital. You must hire staff, place rooms and other objects, and ensure that people are treated well enough to keep your reputation high and get your bank balance high. Succeed on the first level and you will be offered increasingly tough assignments, each with different success targets.

The game hooks you in quickly, and as long as you can cope with the occasional spells where everything is running smoothly but you have to wait to build up enough cures or money, there are enough changes on each level to keep the interest going. It's funny, original, unique, and worth checking out today.

The Good
Playing theme hospital was a lot of fun for quite a while, although slightly repetitive there were always new and strange diseases for your disgruntled employees to cure. It is a great feeling when your hospital is crammed full of patients and everything is running smoothly with only minor details to deal with, where you can sit back a little and see what you have created. The diseases in this game are very creative. Patients come in complaining of bloated heads and even invisibility (how you would 'catch' invisibility i never know).

The Bad
The major problem with this game is that ANNOYING nurse over the intercom (especially when using the cheats). It is only possible to put up with her for 5 minutes before getting really irritated and turning off the sound.

The Bottom Line
This game allows you to get the feeling of being in charge of everything, if there is a problem it will be solvable eventually. This isn't a game to buy if your looking for hundreds of hours of gameplay, its just a game you play on the side for a rainy day.

The Good
A lot. First, it's from Bullfrog - so I can't help but love it. The other reasons are a bit more serious, so let's go on:

• The graphics. Truly great graphics, quite detailed and extremely humourous (or insane, if you'd rather have it this way :-))
• Great music, diverse and actually likeable (though you'd probably want a wavetable card to play this, get an AWE32).
• Reasonably accurate simulation, not like in the half-assed, should-have-never-been-made Theme Park. If you do things right you do them right, and if you screw up you're screwed. That's the way things should be.
• Excellent gameplay and replayability value, with funny rooms and characters, "interesting" (to say the least) cinematic sequences.

The Bad
It's repetitive, definitely repetitive. Also, occasionally you'll find yourself earning profit, running an excellent hospital and still not moving to the next level - only to be promoted half an hour later. Go figure.

The Bottom Line
A really excellent simulation game I really love, however it's completely an issue of taste.

The Good
This game is really well balanced to be just challenging enough. It's a great casual game. I've reinstalled and restarted this game several times over the last decade and never quite put in the hours to make it to the very end before the end of the life of that particular PC, but its lasting appeal always has me coming back for another go.

The Bad
There are a few glitches. There's little more frustrating than nearing the end of a level to have the whole thing crash out because a little person has merged with a door. Doesn't happen often though, what with all these fangled modern patches.

The Bottom Line
A cheeky, tightly designed and extremely well executed management sim. I'm not mad on this genre but this one, though a little dated, stands the test of time in replay value.

Well worth five quid... though due to mine being plenty played over the years, I think I'm onto my third copy now.

The Good
At the beginning, to me, Theme Hospital was looking and did sound great in every aspect and I liked it very much indeed. Never been so easy and so much fun to build and run a hospital. All went right a little bit more until I couldn't manage to run my hospital in one of the levels of the game. Everything went crazy, my patients no more wanted to be patient: EPIDEMIC was covering every part of my building. People were vomiting, dying everywhere and I couldn't help them, I was the only responsible person for that chaos. It all started like a game but it didn't end like that. Game's funny? I remember the fake quarrel between Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta in Matin Scorsese's Goodfellas originated from a word, a world only, "FUNNY ha?" But before that memory I was deeply shocked when I thought Lars von Trier's movie, epidemic, its unexpected end, where epidemic's harmful touches had effected everybody, even our precious heroes: I think I will never forget "that" scream of the woman...

The Bad
If it is a Bullfrog game, I will expect repetitive gameplay. Unfortunately, Theme Hospital is forming no exception.

The Bottom Line
I know, anyone who played or will play this game can't be as clumsy as I am and I don't expect them to live the same emotions, maybe I am just exaggerating. Anyway, for me, Theme Hospital is a rare piece of art, definitely the best "hospital" simulation!