Theme Hospital - PS1 Review - Classic but Crazy
During the 90s, when I was a kid, I remember someone playing this game. If my memory serves me well, that was the first time I've seen a business/simulation type of game and it wasn't even in PC.
This game was created by Bullfrog which is also the developers of famous other simulation games like Theme Park, yeah I guess they like putting Themes in the title of their games lol.
This game has been around for almost 20 years and the PS1 is a port of the same game from the PC. It's humorous, fun and very challenging to play!
Story
There's really no significant story in the game that is mind blowing or anything, you start as an owner of a start up hospital looking to become one of the big boys in the fictional and funny medicine world of this game.
Theme Hospital on Vita
Start Menu
Staff
The staff will be the characters that will help you achieve your goals in becoming the number one hospital. If you don't maintain the hospital the right way like being too cold or being too hot will make the staff unhappy. If they become unhappy, sometimes they will ask for higher salary, you can increase their salary or you can fire them if you want. You can even give them bonus on top of their salary.
Doctor
Your doctors will be your main source of income. They're the staff that has a lot of things to do for most of the patients and can operate the rooms you will built.
There are 3 skills a doctor can have, Researchers can study and learn treatments for newer diseases, Psychiatrists that can treat patients with mental problems, Surgeons for doing surgeries. Some doctors can have all of these and some doesn't have which makes them just a general doctor.
They also have 3 levels, junior, doctors or consultant, consultant level doctors are the fastest and can teach other doctors to learn 1 and even all of the 3 skills.
Nurse
Nurses doesn't have any qualification. They can cure common ailments that doesn't required specialized doctors such as cold. They can operate certain rooms like the ward and pharmacy.
Handyman
This staff may look old but some of them have very proficient skills if the price is right. They maintain the cleanliness of the hospital, repair some of the equipment the doctors use and so on. They water the plants and clean vomits from patients.
You can assign them certain tasks to focus on 1 or many tasks like focusing only on repair or watering plants.
Receptionist
The staff that never get tire but is one of the most important. Without even one, you wouldn't be able to get a customer. Make sure to have a very skilled one as they deal with customers all of the time.
Graphics
The playstation 1 wasn't as powerful as the PC back then but still the graphics in the PS1 version of theme hospital wasn't that bad, it's just not as good as what the PC version has. Your employees like the doctors and nurses all look the same just with different colors and your handyman all look the same. Some patients look all the same too but nevertheless, they're all still very detailed.
The information available to the characters are also very limited as you can't see it by just hovering the arrow to the characters, you need to open their information window to check their abilities and stuff.
Sound
The music of this game is very basic. It's the same throughout the whole game but it fits the game being that you run a hospital.
However, the sound effects is what make this game fantastic and funny. Except for the annoying voice of the receptionist calling the staff, the sound of your patients dying or when there's an emergency is great. It also tells you when a staff of yours is complaining about your management and is asking for salary increase.
Soundtrack
Source
Gameplay
Theme Hospital has become successful because of its humor elements. There are countless funny diseases that you will encounter such as invisibility, being Elvis and even big heads. The game is just simple, you manage a hospital and when you hit the income goal for the stage, you proceed to the second stage. You can even make loans if your money is not enough. Simply decorate the hospital and let your staff do your funny work for you.
I've played both the PC version and PS1 version and the playstation 1 version is terrible when it comes to control. Well, the PC version just needed point and click unlike this where you've got a lot of buttons to press to build rooms or to even check stats. It would take some time to master the controls and the expanding of rooms is somewhat annoying and hard to do.
Sample Game
Overall
The game is quite challenging all throughout the level and there's plenty of features to offer but after beating it, there's nothing else to do so I would say replay of the game is almost none but can still be enjoyable from time to time.
It's not a beginner friendly game but can be lots of fun if you give enough gaming time to it. Graphics are somewhat below standard PS1 version, the receptionist is awful and the controls are hard to master but I can say at least after 20 to 30 minutes of playing, you'll enjoy this crazy little game.
Thanks for reading guys :-) Look forward for more awesome gaming reviews.
All pics and vids without source are screenshots from my Vita and Youtube channel
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i'm not really familiar with that game although we used to play games on PS1 to PS3. All I can remember from PS1 are Resident evil, crossfire(not really sure if this is the correct name), tekken and a lot more haha
Thank you :-). those are my favorites too, Resident evil and especially tekken, Crossfire I think is only on PC, maybe it's a different title but same genre, like quake or counter strike :-) I played crossfire too and it was so fun hahaha
Will properly check on it. Nice one @rye05
Thank you, I'm a fan of your reviews too, great insights and plenty of information
Thanks for loving my reviews
Hehe ang cute. Ngayon ko lng nalaman tong game n to. :)
yeah it's a cute, challenging at sobrang nakakatawang game like my malaking ulo na pasyente tas para gamutin sya puputukin ung ulo nya para paltan ng maliit na ulo haha, mas maganda PC version
Im not also familiar with the game but still another nice review from you sir @rye05
How bout making some review of Monster hunter freedom unite!
That was also an awesome game to play..hehhe
Thank you, sure, I'll look into freedom unite once I have time
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