Ol' Reliable

After a couple of weeks of pottering around in Stardew Valley I got a little bored--you can really only harvest virtual crops for so long before it gets a little dry.  The unfortunate next step was to figure out what to play next.  Should I try to stomach a new Mass Effect:  Andromeda adventure?  Nah, I'm saving that for summer.  Do I want to shoot things?  Kind of, but I'm currently in full relaxation mode and mostly want to come home and chill.  Rather than spend time jumping around from game to game I decided to return to one of my all time favorite oldies--Theme Hospital.

A busy hospital.

I love Theme Hospital.  It's a childhood classic that has stuck with me since 1997 and no matter how much I've played it, I'm always able to find something to enjoy.  If you're completely unaware of the magic that is Theme Hospital, let me give you a short rundown.  Theme Hospital is a hospital management game that is full of goofy jokes.  The diseases that afflict the fictional patrons are things like "Bloatyhead" which results in a massively swollen head that has to be popped and re-inflated to the correct pressure or "Baldness" which requires you to reattach a silly-looking head of hair onto a patient.  Behind this goofiness is fun and challenging management--you have to plan the layout of your hospital, hire doctors, specialists, receptionists, nurses, and handymen to make sure that everything runs efficiently.  Once hired you have to make sure that you're handing our bonuses and pay raises to keep everyone happy or else they just might walk out in the middle of a crisis.  You have to manage the budget, plan research, and make plans to expand.  There's plenty to keep you busy.

After 20 years, I've decided that it's time to finally tackle "hard" mode.  I felt amazingly confident as I plinked the button for "hard" thinking that I was ready.  Spoilers....hard is HARD!  The first few levels were a breeze, but once the number of new diseases increased things got a little chaotic.  In "hard" mode you will find that your personnel pool is decidedly smaller--there are fewer qualified doctors to choose from and you will have to suck up the cost of training specialists.  Patients are extremely un....patient...and will often decide they've waited long enough and leave.  They are also a lot more...vomit-ey than in normal mode.  As I've managed to squeak my way into the last few levels I've found that attempting to cover-up a contagious disease is downright impossible--it's better to take the reputation hit than be fined double the initial cost of covering it up.

One question that has been rolling through my head as I play this twenty year old game is "why hasn't anyone re-made this game?"  Re-masters and re-makes are all the rage and Theme Hospital is a confirmed classic!  It would be unbelievably awesome if someone made a new Theme Hospital.  I don't even know that I've seen very many hospital management sims out there.

Until the day that the Theme Hospital re-make happens I will have to content myself with furiously hiring handymen to sweep up vomit waves.

Get Theme Hospital on GoG for $5.99--Theme Hospital