Theme Hospital

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Name: Theme Hospital Year: 1997 Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Bullfrog Platform: PC Genre: Simulation Total rating: 74.6% - rated 101 times rate now: please log in to rate Submitter: Nikrock Score: 10 points Added: Feb 05 2006 Warez status: Abandonware

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Author: Cannonballsimp Date: Jan 21 2012 - 11:57 Score: 100 points

THEME HOSPITAL – Whimsical, goofy management sim

Theme Hospital was one of the few games I played that did not produce frowns of disapproval from my parents whenever I played it. This was because, in contrast with the vast majority of PC games produced and the games I had played, it did not require the player to lead his avatar along a path of weakly justified violence and systematic slaughter; on the contrary, required one actually to save lives. There was a warm, fuzzy righteousness that playing it produced; I could pretend, illogically, that all the lives I was saving had the effect of compensating karmically for all those that I had violently taken whilst playing Wolfenstein 3D, Quake and Grand Theft Auto (the first one). Never mind that the ailments were never gunshot wounds or missing limbs, but zany inventions like Slack Tongue, Transparency and Hairyitis.

Gameplay
Underneath Theme Hospital's darkly humorous shell is a fairly straightforward but well-balanced management sim. At the beginning of each level the player is given an empty building and a bit of cash, and is asked to fulfil certain requirements. In any one level, this could be a combination of curing a certain number of patients, having a minimum reputation, raising the value of one's hospital above a given amount, etc. If the win conditions are fulfilled, the player is offered a promotion which takes you to the next stage. These conditions are fairly similar in every stage though, so the game can become slightly repetitive.

In order to cure a patient and earn money, the patient's illness first needs to be diagnosed. Receptionists send patients to the GP's office for initial diagnosis. If the GP cannot diagnose the disease, the patient is sent to one of the diagnosis rooms, such as Psychiatric, Cardiogram, X-ray or Blood Machine. Once a successful diagnosis is reached, the patient is sent to a treatment room such as the Pharmacy, Operating Theatre, Inflation Clinic or Tongue Slicer.

Setting up an efficient hospital can be a challenge. The most important things that you need to be continuously aware of are i) how far patients have to walk, ii) bottlenecks at important diagnosis rooms such as the GP's office, and iii) keeping the place spotlessly clean. To handle the first two of these, planning is crucial. For example, if the GP's office is located right next to the front door, and the Pharmacy (which provides cures for a large percentage of patients) is at a distant corner of the building at the end of a narrow corridor, a significant amount of time will be wasted, and waiting patients will clog up your hospital's corridors, slowing everything down. Also, you'll want to have all your diagnosis rooms close together near the hospital entrance, so that lengthy and complicated diagnoses involving numerous rooms can be completed relatively quickly and without creating traffic jams. You'll probably want three GP's offices, and sometimes four in the later levels, to cope with the influx of patients, since everybody goes there first, even if the cast on their leg makes it obvious that they need to go to the Fracture Clinic, or their enormously elongated tongue clearly indicates a bad case of Slack Tongue. Keeping your hospital clean is most easily accomplished by employing an army of handymen – you can never have enough of these guys – placing toilets within easy reach, and lining the corridors with plants to keep the air fresh. It is always worthwhile to hire staff with the highest ability rating possible, even if they demand exorbitant salaries; the cheap staff are slow and erratic and are basically a liability. This is true of Doctors, Nurses, Receptionists and Handymen.

Punctuating the day-to-day running of the hospital are special events. For example, you might be called on to handle an emergency. A large number of patients with the same disease are helicoptered in, and you have to cure them all within a time limit. These can bring in a lot of money if they are successfully dealt with, although failure can dent your reputation. Sometimes, there are earthquakes which damage your machines. Epidemics can sweep through your hospital, especially if it is dirty, causing large numbers of deaths. If your hospital is especially dirty, you may even suffer a vomiting plague, which is often enough to end the stage in failure.

Graphics and Sound
The graphics are functional but nothing special. You'll never be wowed, but neither will you ever have a problem identifying any onscreen goings-on. Some of the animations a pretty funny though, and will probably produce a chuckle from time to time. The Tongue Slicer is a personal favourite. The art style is semi-realistic, although the strange diseases that are always visible onscreen regularly confirm that nothing is to be taken too seriously. The sound and music are both excellent. A loud cheer goes up every time a cure is completed, as if the whole thing was taken place inside a sport stadium. The receptionists' announcements create an atmosphere of bustling, urgent activity. You probably won't want to linger above a toilet block too often though. The jolly synthesized music is appropriate, capturing the game's goofy spirit and fitting its sterile colour palette perfectly, and the tunes are catchy. As with virtually all game music though, it will probably get annoying at some stage.

The kernel of the game – Diseases! At the heart of Railroad Tycoon are the trains. At the heart of Quake are the monsters. At the heart of Theme Hospital are the diseases. The developers clearly put a lot of thought into these, providing each with humorous description of its cause, symptoms and cure. For example, the cause of Slack Tongue is given as 'chronic overdiscussion of soap operas,' its symptoms are 'Tongue swells to five times its original length,' and the cure is 'The tongue is placed in the Slicer Machine, and removed quickly, efficiently and painfully.' Some of the diseases, such as Golf Stones, Third Degree Sideburns and Uncommon Cold, are variations on actual, real-world ailments, whereas others, (such as Bloaty Head, Jellyitis and the aforementioned Slack Tongue) seem to have emerged from the strangest suburbs of the developers' imaginations.

Conclusion
Theme Hospital has a lot going for it. It's a solid product, and it is refreshing to be saving lives rather than ending them. The most serious criticism is probably that the objectives of each stage are all too similar. This is offset somewhat by the new machines and diseases that are introduced as you work you way through the game, but some more varied challenges would have been nice. Assuming that you enjoy management sims generally, I fully recommend this one. It is funny, challenging and the sight of a spotless, efficient hospital, with doctors scurrying from room to room, and accompanied by the regular cheers indicating that patients are being cured, is always satisfying.

	Type / Title	Downloads / Views	Action
	CD ISO	196	Download
	Cheats	2182	Read
	Game manual	88	Download

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By Funlass - Aug 07 2015 - 07:21 hi how do I download this game please

By Bee_94 - Jul 08 2014 - 15:02 Warning! A cheat has been running the hospital!

By Captainbucket - Jul 27 2012 - 23:04 i played this when i was 5 i still remember the intro.

By Sharky48 - May 25 2012 - 13:09 This game is now availeble for Android ! Plays better on pc.

By Rahulroy9202 - Apr 11 2012 - 08:24 This game is really fun to play.... And the diseases and cures are funny....

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