Theme Hospital Review

For PC (also for PlayStation)

Rating: Awesome
   If you liked Theme Park, you'll love Theme Hospital.  And even if you 
have never heard of Theme Park (or if you played it and didn't like it), 
Theme Hospital is still a great game that every true fan of simulation 
games must play. The game lets players set up and maintain their own 
virtual hospitals, but this is no dry simulation.  The game is full of 
Bullfrog's  trademark British humor and amazing attention to detail.  The 
game starts out simply enough with only a few key rooms to build to get 
your hospital up and running.  Building a reception area, GP Office, 
General Diagnosis, Psychiatric, Pharmacy, Ward, Staff Room, and restroom 
facilities is not that complicated of a task.  Hiring the right doctors, 
nurses, and handymen at the right price and then maintaining your hospital 
and dealing with problems after it has opened is an entirely different task.
Bullfrog did a masterful job of slowly easing you into what eventually 
becomes an extremely in-depth and complicated simulation.  Each new level 
brings with it new rooms that are at your disposal, including research
departments which are needed to discover and build advanced diagnostic 
rooms that become all the more essential as the game progresses.
   Unlike the Sim City series, there is actually a way to "win" in Theme 
Hospital.  After you've met certain criteria for money earned, patients 
cured, etc, you will be offered a promotion to a new, more complicated 
hospital assignment.  Each level has its own set of objectives you must 
meet before being offered a promotion, and thankfully, you always have the 
option to turn down promotion offers and keep playing on the same level for
as long as you want if you have grown attached to it.  
   One glaring flaw in Theme Hospital is the complete lack of multi-
player modes. The game pits you against three other computer-controlled
virtual hospitals on each level, as you try to cure more patients than them,
make more money, win more year-end awards, etc. Why couldn't you compete
against other people in the same exact fashion?  As cool as a multi-player 
mode could have been, the fact still remains that this is the only major
omission in the entire game. For this reason, it is very forgivable and
should not get in the way of your enjoyment of the excellent single-player
mode.
   The music in Theme Hospital will only appeal to certain tastes, but I 
think it's some of the best video game music ever and fits in perfectly 
with the game's "quirky" feel.  I highly recommend that every gamer at 
least gives this magnificent game a try.   You won't regret it.

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