Customer Reviews

Theme Hospital

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Theme Hospital, released in 1997 by Bullfrog, is a relatively simple but addictively fun game that truly stands the test of time. It puts you in complete control of a series of hospitals, working your way up from one larger institution to another. The job gets harder as you move up the ladder, as greater crises and burdens lie in wait to bring you down. It all starts fairly simple. At your first hospital, you just need to set up a general practitioner's office or two, a general diagnostics room, a pharmacy, a psychiatric office, and get your researchers working on new diseases and ways to go about combating them. You've got to hire doctors, nurses, handymen, and a receptionist - and you get a wide range of folks to choose from. Will you pay top dollar for the efficient GP's and specialists, or will you settle for abrasive, lazy types who smell of cabbage? Cure enough patients, make enough money, and establish a good enough reputation, and job offers for bigger and better assignments will come your way.

As you progress, you'll get access to an assortment of fancy diagnostic equipment and treatment clinics. For those hard-to-diagnose cases, there are X-ray rooms, cardiology exams, high-dollar scanners, and the like, and before long you're even ready to build an operating theater and put scalpels in the hands of those crazy doctors of yours. As for the diseases and conditions, they aren't your typical fare: alongside gastrointestinal-type ailments such as the squibs, you have folks with Elvis Complex (who do indeed show up in Elvis leisure suits), invisibility, Bloaty Head (just pop their head and reinflate it), Slack Tongue (chop chop), Baldness (wait'll you see how to cure that), and an assortment of silly afflictions. Of course, you have your basic fractures and uncommon cold cases, as well. Each condition is more funny than serious (especially in terms of how it is contracted), but keeping your hospital up and working efficiently gets to be pretty serious when you've got patients queued up in the aisles, tired doctors recuperating in the staff lounge, diagnostic machines temporarily down for repair, emergencies bringing in a number of new patients who must be cured quickly if your reputation isn't to suffer, earthquakes shaking things up, and epidemics popping up and wreaking havoc. Patients can be pretty messy, as many of them tend to throw up all over the place. If you don't have enough dependable handymen around to clean up the mess, the Ministry of Health will be all over you.

The graphics look surprisingly good even today - although 1997 graphics certainly don't compare to those of recent games. There is a decent variety of looks among patients, and it's almost worth killing a few of them just to watch them ascend to heaven (or, on occasion, drop through the floor on their way to an alternate destination). The game is simple enough for anyone to play and enjoy, although things get pretty challenging as you progress deeper into the game. A lot of games today sacrifice fancy graphics for actual gameplay, but Theme Hospital is the kind of game you enjoy playing years and years after its release.

This is a pretty old game, so you probably won't be impressed with the graphics. I played this about 10 years ago and still love it.

Basically you manage a hospital. You are responsible for building different types of rooms, hiring nurses/doctors/handymen/receptionists, and control your in and outflow of money.

I'm not sure how many levels there are since I've never beaten the game, but there seem to be plenty. In order to move onto the next level you will have to meet the goal of curing a certain number of patients, maintaining your popularity, and earning a certain amount of money. Sometimes the game throws in curve balls in the harder levels such as epidemics.

I cannot think of what other game this game is similar to, but if you like micromanagement and challenges, then you should probably give this a try. But don't forget, this is a pretty old game so you may not have the control and graphics of today!

Let me start by stating that I am an Atari 2600 girl who does not normally like the games of "today" because I find them too complicated and too time-consuming to figure out. That is, until I found this game. For some reason, I was attracted to the title. It sounded like a fun game. When I started playing it, I found it to be not only fun but very easy to learn and quite addictive! All you use is a mouse and you can build your hospital the way you want (including restrooms, staff room complete with pool table and arcade game, soda machines, etc.), hire staff, purchase property for more rooms, etc. The higher the level you get, the more neat stuff you can build (scanners, x-ray room, operating theatre, even a hair restoration clinic) and the more obstacles you face (earthquakes, emergencies, epidemics, etc.). There are so many things to control in this game from making sure each staff member is in the proper place to shooting rats that roam your hospital. Sometimes a stomach virus will spread in the hospital and you have to hurry maintenance men to clean up the vomit (the sound effects are also a hoot). The game even keeps stats like how many times a bench or soda machine is used so you can rearrange your hospital more efficiently. The ailments patients suffer are hilarious: things like slack tongue, spare ribs, and bloaty head. My favorite is King's Syndrome where patients come in dressed as Elvis and have to see a psychiatrist. Once they take off their Elvis outfits, they're cured! I find myself playing this game for hours! My only criticism is that it freezes up in later levels and sometimes patients get stuck in doors which makes a diagnosis or treatment room useless and you keep having to drag your doctors out of there. Theme Hospital is definitely worth the money, but you can also buy this game as part of the "Top Ten Blue" pack for less.

Have a taster of being in charge of a bustling hospital. Enjoy the ups and downs as well as the money and bankruptcy.

I love this game because of the feel of being in charge and bossing everyone about continuously! Build scanners, wards, reception, and well, nearly everything you can think of!

Some of the' illnesses' may come as a little joke to you e.g. inflation of the head' (where the man/woman head has completely expanded) but consequences could be fatal if you let them go untreated. May they rest in peace!

The slight problem in the game is it can get confusing, and boring, it's all the same thing through the game: cure people.

The graphics are not great either, but if you like comics, this cartoony style of graphic is the one for you!

I love this game because of the strategy involved, and the level of difficulty in the game. I would recommend this to people above 8+. Believe me it's really a good laugh!

This game is great. I've played all sorts of the theme and Sim games, I've built cities, theme parks, Malls and the like. I've run a railroad and many a war. But, this game has a fun element that the others are missing. Everything is designed to bring a smile.

I have polayed it off and on for years and am about to buy a new copy on account of my UK version doesn't play on my US playstation 2. *sigh* whatever happened to compatibility?

The greatest thing about this game is that it's so addictive, you just can't stop trying to get the next diagnostic improvement or build that new wing.

The worst thing about it is that it needs more depth! Theme Hospital 2.0 please. Never mind the mind-boggling graphics and cinematic realism, how about some more of the wonderful humor and wit, and FUN, evident in ths game, only with even more options and even more stuff to do? Please?

I loved this game and used to play it all the time when I was little. Sadly, the game got lost during some moves and recently I decided I wanted to play it again. When I first ordered this, I was disappointed to find out that it was incompatible with Windows 7 (64 bit). That was my own fault though, as I hadn't checked first to see if it was.

Anyway, after searching online and trying some things out on my own, I found that the best way to play this on my computer was using DOSbox, a DOS emulater. It was a quick download and a (mostly) painless setup to make Theme Hospital. I had never used something like DOSbox before, but I figured it out, so I figure it must be really easy for people with computer know-how.

Here's the link for the page that helped me get it set up! Hopefully it will help others too! (Note: you can skip down to the second paragraph beneath the in-game pic, which starts "The final option...")
blog.initprogram.com/2009/10/13/theme-hospital-on-modern-computers/

When it comes to addicting, fun strategy and sim games, it doesn't get much better than this! Theme Hospital is considered a classic and with good reason: it's probably one of the most engaging and funniest games you'll ever play. The premise is simple: you're asked to help build and run a particular hospital. This includes building rooms, hiring staff, micro-managing employees, and curing patients. Each level there's a particular goal you must reach in order to advance to the next level-- earning a certain amount of profit, curing X amount of patients, earning X amount of property, and establishing a decent reputation. This all sounds very easy, but as the levels progress a few challenges are thrown your way, such as earthquakes, machinery malfunctions, and epidemics which can cause you to take a reputation hit, be fined heavily, and even lose vital hospital rooms, patients, and staff members!

The game playing itself is great, but what's made Theme Hospital a cult classic is its level of humor. Running a hospital is serious business, but Bullfrog made sure to make this game as funny and cute as possible by injecting humor in every aspect of it, from the graphics to the music. As you play it, a receptionist makes hilarious announcements such as, "Patients are reminded not to die in the corridors." The diseases you must cure aren't the usual medical conditions, but very comical, such as "Slack Tongue", "Bloaty Head", "Corrugated Ankles" and "Golf Stones". The animations and sounds are funny as well, as patients are seen and heard burping, throwing up, and being tortured--er, "treated"-- by various goofy-looking machines like the Jelly Vat, Hair Restorer, and Inflation Machine. Even "death" is made funny-- when a patient dies, the Grim Reaper appears out of a hole in the ground and yanks him. All the while, goofy music plays in the background. Not only does all of this make Theme Hospital enjoyable to play, it goes a long way in calming you down during the more frustating levels towards the end of the game.

What else can I say? As you can tell, I really love this game and think this is definitely of the best sims on the planet. So if you're looking for a fun way to kill some time and laugh in the process, pick up Theme Hospital today! You won't be disappointed.

I love this game. Its so addictive and its so much fun. It always gets harder as you get to the next level and there is so many little funny things about it. Like the machines that they operate. For example: theres a machine that is suppose to get a person with a swelled head back to a normal size head and the head actually pops lol. Theres nothing like bloody about it. Its just plain fun and its been one of my fav games since it came out.

THEME HOSPITAL IS INDEED ADDICTIVE AND SO INFURIATING WHEN YOU WATCH YOUR STATUS GET LOWER AND LOWER AND THEN YOU DIE. WHAT A TERRIBLE FEELING!! COMPARE THIS WITH THE AMAZING FEELING ONE GETS WHEN HAVING COMPLETED A LEVEL AND YOU ARE WAITING FOR THE LETTER TO ARRIVE FROM THE MINISTERY OF HEALTH. BUT HOW CAN I IMPROVE MY REPUTATION?!?!? IT IS SOOOO HARD!

I played this game way back when it first came out. I loved it then and I still love it now. This game was ahead of it's time when it came out so I don't think you will be disappointed in the graphics or the game play. It doesn't say it is compatible with Vista but it plays fine on my computer. I wish they'd come out with a sequel!! I really, really love this game!!!!