Theme Hospital

This game is one of Bullfrog's finest, and one of the only management games I still play. It's one of those games that are easy to learn but hard to master, as you have to start controlling multiple issues at once (including emergencies, epidemics, rat infestations, and more) and learning to place your rooms in the right place to maximize efficiency is a MUST. I especially love how you can control which person needs to go where by picking them up and placing them exactly where you need them (a feature that is lacking in some games). My only gripe is that the rats that can get tough to deal with overtime, especially since the janitors can't automatically get rid of ratholes (you have to use a bench and place them over the hole to get rid of them, rinse and repeat for all the holes). Overall, this game has me in stitches with some of the disease names and the general humor of the game (especially as a doctor in RL) and I can't recommend this game enough to people who love micro-management and sim games in general. Just to make sure you guys know, make sure to check out the CorsixTH project for android devices (placed it on my Nexus 7 FHD and it works well). Gotta go, my hospital administrator is cheating... oh wait that's me.

The game is extremely original. From the management of diseases and crazy treatments, to the attachments or buildings of the hospital. It is worth mentioning that what I liked the most about the game in my childhood was that satirical and parodic touch. Truly a hidden gem of the pc!

This game is as good now and it was then. Contemporary games could learn something from this kind of pure design.

I had a lot of nostalgia for Theme Hospital, having played it as a child on original release but, returning to it today showed up all the gameplay issues that I didn't remember. The install was fine and the game ran well technically. I didn't experience any issues or crashes during my whole play time (A full run through of the game on hard mode). The problems are all gameplay related. There are many misleading or vague statements in game and in the manual which leave you scratching your head as to what decisions to make. After playing for a while you realise that some guidance has lead you down the wrong path. There is way too much reliance of pop up messages which take you out of the game for 2-3 seconds at a time. This doesn't sound too bad until you get a busy hospital with messages popping up every 5-10 seconds. There are a few minor gameplay bugs which can nerf a level for you but the biggest one is the epidemic bug. Any hospital that has outdoor paths between buildings suffers from this and you have to completely adjust your hospital to avoid continuous, gamebreaking, fines. Th final major issue is certain items and rooms being completely detrimental to the running of your hospital even though you're constantly encouraged to build them. I won't explain which ones because that would be too much of a spoiler but I'm sure you'll work it out once you get to the busier levels and they cause major problems for you. You can get a lot of fun from Theme Hospital but playing it for more than a few hours will start to reveal all of the frustrations.

Great game, that still holds up today. No hosptial sims since have been anywhere near as good, but that is the joy of Bulldog games (R.I.P). My girlfreind who was 1 when this was released, played it for the first time recently and loved it!