This game holds a special place in my childhood. It was the first management style game that I enjoyed, having tried but never got to grips with Theme Park.
Theme Hospital streamlined a lot of the configuration i.e. Prices of treatments and research resource allocation etc. Which made this game much more accessible for children.
This meant that you could get on with the fun parts. Laying out and building your hospital, reading the funny observations about and then hiring staff, observing the whacky illnesses and treatments of your patients.
The humour and immersion is what makes this game so special for me. The description of illnesses in the game still make me laugh even now. Also the satire cynicism of private healthcare is now apparent to me as an adult.
I recently went back and completed this game for the first time. Having not got this far as a child, I never realised that the final levels are just not finished. The announcements don't always line up with the correct hospital equipment and the DNA resequencers can only be used in an emergency. They are particularly hard to utilise as once you have researched the equipment, the emergencies have been and gone before you could treat them. It is still possible to complete the levels with these bugs but it is a little frustrating nonetheless. Maybe if I replay again I'll build more research rooms early to account for it. I also had to replay a couple levels because patients or staff would glitch into random rooms or get stuck in corridors. Sometimes rebuilding a room or widening a corridor could fix this but it wasn't fun having to deal with that kind of issue.
Finally the soundtrack makes it easy to sink hours into this game. A must for any management game in my opinion. I feel like music designed for games is almost an outdated concept these days. Before developers could rely on visuals and celebrity voice actors they needed engaging gameplay with interesting mechanics and immersive sound to lead you through it.
I highly recommend this game but the bugs can get a little frustrating towards the end.
Theme Hospital streamlined a lot of the configuration i.e. Prices of treatments and research resource allocation etc. Which made this game much more accessible for children.
This meant that you could get on with the fun parts. Laying out and building your hospital, reading the funny observations about and then hiring staff, observing the whacky illnesses and treatments of your patients.
The humour and immersion is what makes this game so special for me. The description of illnesses in the game still make me laugh even now. Also the satire cynicism of private healthcare is now apparent to me as an adult.
I recently went back and completed this game for the first time. Having not got this far as a child, I never realised that the final levels are just not finished. The announcements don't always line up with the correct hospital equipment and the DNA resequencers can only be used in an emergency. They are particularly hard to utilise as once you have researched the equipment, the emergencies have been and gone before you could treat them. It is still possible to complete the levels with these bugs but it is a little frustrating nonetheless. Maybe if I replay again I'll build more research rooms early to account for it. I also had to replay a couple levels because patients or staff would glitch into random rooms or get stuck in corridors. Sometimes rebuilding a room or widening a corridor could fix this but it wasn't fun having to deal with that kind of issue.
Finally the soundtrack makes it easy to sink hours into this game. A must for any management game in my opinion. I feel like music designed for games is almost an outdated concept these days. Before developers could rely on visuals and celebrity voice actors they needed engaging gameplay with interesting mechanics and immersive sound to lead you through it.
I highly recommend this game but the bugs can get a little frustrating towards the end.
