Theme Hospital

Theme Hospital was originally released in 1997 and was the second game in the popular Theme series of games; following on from Theme Park.  The game was a massive commercial success, selling over 4 million copies worldwide.

Theme Hospital is a simulation game set in a hospital that would make a trip to your local Accident & Emergency a dream experience. The game starts off in an empty hospital with a fairly basic layout and your goal is to build the rooms available, hire the correct staff, fill your hospital with seats, fire extinguishers and all manner of small items, in order to fulfil the targets set for you within the fields of financial attainment, percentage of patients cured, patients cured and hospital value.  Once you have fulfilled the targets for the hospital (within the time limit), you are moved to a bigger hospital, with bigger targets, new diseases, new rooms to build and a more complex layout.

The game revolves around the player buying and placing rooms (or facilities) in a hospital, and hiring doctors, nurses, receptionists and handymen to make the hospital operational. Once the hospital is opened, patients will start arriving will all manner of amusing fictional illnesses which must be diagnosed and cured in order to obtain money and achieve the set targets. The player must also ensure that the hospital and equipment is kept in clean, working order and that staff members do not get to tired or to cold while at work.

There is a somewhat dark sense of humour running throughout the game, the same humour that runs through all of Bullfrog's Theme games. The fictional illnesses adding to the humour with diseases such as Bloaty Head, Hairyitis, Heaped Piles and The Squits. There are loads of little humorous touches that you will experience throughout the game with workers who 'smell faintly of cabbage', references to other well-known computers, and the occasional visit from Death himself if your hospital reputation gets that bad.

It may have been 15 years since it was originally released but Theme Hospital is still a cracking game and the humour within still stands as strong now as it did all those years ago. If you have never played the game, and god knows why, then you should definitely pick it up and experience a game that is nothing short of a classic. You can download the game from the PlayStation Store or you can pick up the Windows version from the GAME website for just £2.99. http://www.game.co.uk/