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

Classic Gaming for free! Sounds sketchy, but is legit.

"Conquests of the Longbow:  The Legend of Robin Hood"

As someone who tries to avoid the variety of viruses, trojans, phishing attempts, and other Internet tricks I was very skeptical when I read about the release of thousands of classic MS-DOS games for free.  I had heard about an effort to add these thousands of now completely outdated video games to the free Internet Archive but hadn't checked it out until yesterday.  It appears that my caution is unwarranted.  There is nothing to download--it's run on an emulator (DOSBox) in your browser and seems to work pretty well.  I only messed around with it for a few minutes so I have no idea how save files work or anything like that.  The games listed include some great classics from my childhood.  It may be daunting to navigate the 2,296 games that they currently have listed on the site. Here are my recommendations for what to check out from this amazing gaming database.

1.) The Oregon Trail (or the "deluxe" version which is much more challenging )

The Oregon Trail is a semi-educational game that allows you to learn some facts about pioneers who traveled on the actual trail.  It also acts as a sort of strategy/simulation where you have to plan out and make decisions to keep your party alive.  Didn't take enough wagon axles?  Guess you didn't make it to Oregon and died a horrible death from your poor planning.  From what I remember in elementary school, the highlight was always hunting.  You have to option of hunting for food in areas with plentiful game and can bring back a certain amount of meat for your group.  You can only carry so much weight, but we all know you try to shoot everything on the screen.

2.) Wolfenstein 3D

This is the granddaddy of modern shooters and was a pretty advanced and controversial title in it's day.  My brother and I played it with reckless abandon and have both turned out fine despite the violence.  There are so many mechanics in this game that have remained in modern games that you can't help but feel like you're playing a part of gaming history.  Just looking at it makes me feel like mowing down some pixellated Nazi's.

3.) SimFarm

If you've ever felt the urge to drop everything, buy a farm in the middle of nowhere, and raise pigs for the rest of your life, SimFarm is perfect for you.  As the title implies this is one of the many "Sim" games that was released during the post-SimCity craze.  In it you will be tasked with running your own farm and making it profitable.  It's harder than it sounds.  Plant strawberries.  That's my advice.

4.) Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Another educational game with a focus on geography.  The story was that you were working for a detective agency and had to use geographic clues to try to locate the mysterious Carmen Sandiego.  In the process you learned some fun facts about different locations around the world.  It spawned a spin-off TV show that as a child I used to watch religiously.  Brush up on your geography facts!

5.) Conquests of the Longbow--The Legend of Robin Hood

This game was one of my favorites as a kid.  It is an action RPG game where you play as Robin Hood.  It is one of the first games that I can remember where you were given choices about how you wanted the story to play out.  It has a great story that's very exciting and will keep you busy for hours.  I remember the manual as being somewhat important in this game (your pre-digital DRM) and hope that it's available on the archive or somewhere.

6.) Lemmings 2 or any of the  Lemmings games on the database

Lemmings was an early puzzle game that required you to use different objects to navigate a danger filled landscape in order to get a group of suicidal "lemmings" to their final destination.  It requires some problem-solving skills and some creative thinking in order to accomplish your goal.  For some reason the music from this series really sticks in my mind.  It may be from the original Lemmings game which is, unfortunately, not currently listed on the database.

Those are some of my top picks.  I am hoping to spend some time taking a more thorough look through the list to see what's really available.  Get your classic game on!