Theme Hospital
Theme Hospital is a humourous parody of American hospitals. Without a welfare state, the rich get all the care and attention they need but the poor are regarded as a burden. The opening cut scene tells it all. You see a patient called in to the Emergency Room. A doctor comes rushing in to attend to the patient. He needs an operation, fast and he's quickly placed on the operating theatre. However, before the operation takes place, a credit check is made. It's soon realised that the patient has no money to pay for the operation, so he's sent flying down a trap-door!Theme Hospital is divided in to 12 main levels. You start the game with small plot of land on which to build your hospital. You need to cater for the diseases that you might encounter. To do this, you build a number of different diagnosis and treatment rooms. Rooms include GP's Offices, Pharmacies and Wards as well as specialist clinics such as the Inflator Room where patients suffering from "Bloaty Head" are sent. To cure their ailment, their oversized heads are punctured with a pin to deflate them, before being increased to normal size with the Inflator.
You need to employ doctors to diagnose and treat your patients; these include specialists such as surgeons and psychiatrists. Nurses are also used for some diagnoses and treatments. You also need receptionists to manage your queues. Finally, the handymen from Theme Park return. They clean up the rubbish, vomit and other bodily fluids that your patients leave on the floor. They are also responsible for keeping your machines well maintained and watering the plants.
A number of criteria are set for each level. You have to get your hospital to a certain size, you have to make a set amount of profit, cure enough patients and gain a good reputation. Once you have met these criteria, you are offered a job in the next hospital. The new job takes you to the next level, where you will find increasingly more demanding diseases which require a wider variety of diagnosis and treatment rooms.
The game really is a laugh a minute. Intermittently, an announcement from a receptionist will be heard over the tannoy system, such as "Patients are reminded to have their cheque books ready", "Patients are asked to kindly not vomit in the corridors". The diseases are mostly fictitious, with some interesting causes and cures. Baldness is caused by telling lies and making up stories to be popular and can be cured by seamlessly melding hair on to the patient's head using a painful machine! Invisibility is caused by being bitten by a radioactive and invisible ant; however a colourful liquid drunk in the Pharmacy soon restores the patient to full observability!
Theme Hospital really is a great game. The graphics are fun, the difficulty level rises at a good rate, making the first levels easy enough for you to get to grips with the controls, while providing a good challenge later on. Dealing with ill people has never been so much fun!