| Product: |
Theme Hospital (PC) |
| Date: |
20/06/08 (70 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good graphics, humorous conditions and brilliant cures
Disadvantages: The irritating music - but this is easily solved
Theme Hospital is a fantastic tycoon style game that allows you to build and manage your own hospital. This isn't just any hospital though. Oh no, it's a hospital were people are diagnosed with "Television Personalities" (causes by watching too much daytime TV), with "The Squits" (solved by drinking an acid substance at the pharmacy) and "Bloaty Head" (were patients have... well you guessed it... a bloated head).
The game has two modes; story mode, where you are given goals, usually relating to money, number of patients cured or popularity rating, to achieve and progress on to the next level and free mode, where you are free to build and run your own hospital with no goals or limits, except those of your own imagination.
Play for both modes is ultimately the same only one has targets and the other does not. When the game begins you find yourself in a black hospital building, the size and shape will differ depending on the level, and your first task will be to place a reception desk. Like all rooms and floor objects this is done by simply clicking on the appropriate floor objects tab and then selecting the reception desk and left clicking where you would like to place it. Once the desk is placed you hire a receptionist again by clicking on the appropriate tab and selecting the receptionist you want to hire. Placing her anywhere on the floor she will make her own way to the desk.
Then it is time to build the main of the hospital including GP offices, Psychiatric rooms, wards, pharmacies, toilets and staff rooms. Again you then need to hire the appropriate staff. All room except for the ward, pharmacy and later the fracture clinic are manned by doctors but only those with psychiatric skills can work in the psychiatry room and later on in the game only those with surgical skills can work in the operating theatre and those with research skills in the research lab. These skills are shown by little symbols below their name and in later levels doctors can even be trained in these skills by a consultant in that particular field.
When patients arrive they will automatically move to the reception desk and then through the diagnosis and treatment process without your intervention. Your job is quite simply to monitor room queues, boosting those close to death, signified by an unhappy face and then later a deteriorating skull above their heads, to the front and those less important to the back. You will also need to answer any faxes that appear, usually relating to people who want to visit, new diseases that have been discovered and later incoming emergencies. Furthermore by clicking on the goals tab you can see how patients feel about your hospital and place more seating, radiators, plants or drinks machines as appropriate.
This process continues until the level has either been won or until you are bankrupt and closed down. If you win you progress onto the next level and the process begins again. If you loose you begin that level again. As the levels progress the goals you receive are more challenging and take longer to complete. More rooms, such as the X-ray room, the JellyVat and the Cardiogram will also become available. New diseases will be discovered and later on you will also have to deal with earthquakes, which destroy your machinery, emergencies, where a number of patients with a particular disease arrive with a blue light above their heads and must be treated in a certain amount of time, and epidemics.
The game is automatically saved every ten-minutes but it can be saved whenever you wish quite easily. The graphics on this game are extremely good, considering its age. The room, people and equipment are crisp and the colours bright and even as your hospital grows the graphics do not begin to stutter.
The music is the only annoying thing about the game and can become quite irritating. The receptionists constant calls for patients not to die in the corridors or for a doctor to attend in psychiatry can also begin to grate after a while. However both of these, the music and the background noise i.e. receptionist can be turned off either individually or together. Problem solved.
All in all therefore this is an absolutely fantastic game. It has a lasting appeal for people of all ages because of the level progression and can be played over and over again without boredom. The fact that the diseases discovered are amusing, the descriptions of them quite humorous and the cures quite entertaining to watch makes this game a real treat to play.
Summary: An easy to master fun game for everyone
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