Great idea - Well executed! (Theme Hospital (PC))

Member Name: marktjones

Product:	Theme Hospital (PC)
Date:	13/01/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Only low-spec machine needed, Funny, Complex, Very involved

Disadvantages: May be a little to difficult for the non-strategically minded.

You can now get Theme Hopspital from asda for £10 (in a bundle with "Dungeon keeper 2" and "sports car GT"), so I bought it, and have been very impressed, mainly by this game. You have to (similar to Theme Park, as if you couldn't guess) manage a hospital, doing everything from paying wages, keeping staff happy, employing staff, building new room, buying new equipment etc, etc. It is made made very well indeed - with so much detail involved, I love this game.

Because this game came out a few years ago, you do not need a Top-Spec PC to play it on, unlike most of the newer games, so anyone reading this op should have a good enough PC to play it on.

The idea is to cure enough patients on each level (a level lasts for 1 "year" - about 10 minutes), and then you are offered a new job when you have reached your target for the year - going onto a new hospital in a different area. Each level you progress through gets a little more difficult, as there will be new rooms to build, because of more diseases and more patients, meaning that your management skill have to be very good, or it will get out of hand, and you will get very frustrated by it.

The nice thing about this game is that all of the diseases are funny in some sort of way, like "bloaty head", where you need to pop someone's head, and then blow it up a little to get it to the right size because their head is too large!. Then there are personality disorders, where people think they are Elvis (They are actually dress up in Elvis-type clothes), and you don't "treat" them as such, but rather they need counselling, which your hopital can offer too, if you employ a Doctor with counselling skills.

Every so often a VIP will visit your hospital, generally walking around, looking at everything. When they have gone, they will rate your hospital, and if they think it is good, you will get a money bonus, which goes towards staff
wages, new rooms, new equipment etc. Bonuses are also won by coming top in league tables, that come in different categories such as "cleanliness", "size" and The overall price that your hospital is worth.

If you liked Theme Park, then you really should have this game, because it is more involved, better executed and more humorous.

Summary: