Back in the 90s I lived in a little country town about 350-400 kilometres away from where I live now. I was ill a lot as a child, and it took many specialists and visits to Adelaide until they found out I had two particular illnesses. Neurofibromatosis, and Helicobacter Pylori. The first is a genetic condition, hereditary, but not possibly contagious, causing many deformities of my epidermis. The second was the cause of stomach ulcers and the inability to keep food down for most of my youth until my teen years.

While I'm cured of the later, the first is an eternal curse. In some ways, it is why I took 2023 off of rambling here. And it is quite possible that I'll be out of action for a good chunk of the year if decisions made by a sarcoma specialist are given the thumbs up in May.

Basically, I spent a lot of time in hospitals. They are horrible places filled with very skilled people under more stress than what I have in the education sector. And unlike EA towards Bullfrog, I've not been killed off yet...

Theme Hospital was a game by Bullfrog in 1997 as part of their "Theme" (Or Designer) series. My sister had a copy back then and only played it a little bit, not having the same obsession of compuvideogames as I did (and still somewhat do), but I recall my mother playing it a lot too. I never did finish that game until it's re-release on GOG in 2012. It was fun, with one challenging mission mid way through, but as with many sim/tycoon/resource games you eventually learn optimal patterns and placements and can speed through the missions.

Two Point Hospital brings this game into the modern era, and was made by some of the developers of the 90s Theme Hospital game. And it is the modern era that both made me really enjoy it, and quickly come to utterly hate the fucking thing.

Do you like excessive and expensive DLC? Two Point Hospital has you covered. It will remind you of it on the menu screen, along with promoting their latest Two Point Campus game. It will remind you on the map screen, and even dare to add it to your cart if you click on the purchase button for the locked location. Okay, fair enough, it did say "PURCHASE". But I really was expecting to be taken to the DLC's store page, not have it add the missing DLC to the bloody cart!

There's also the collaboration co-op unlocks. Now, I'm on record as stating that I prefer collaboration over competition. However I find the method here to be just stupid. You need friends, and who has those in a post Covid-19 era? But really, you need to "challenge" friends by inviting them to complete in game objectives. The first one is free, it was complete before I knew it existed. The second one you can solo (just don't play in fast mode or you'll never see the reticle for the monobeast), but the third one? Oh, you need to tag a friend for the next one.
And that friend better have the game. And have it installed. And be online. And be wanting to play it too. Or you are locked out of whatever bonus the mission provides, because fuck you that's why! We're going to make the NHS look like the better option!

Now that the hate is out of the way... It's a bloody good game. And would of stayed as one if not for the mess in the previous chunk here. British humour off the medical charts coming over the in game PA system. Fun pun filled descriptions on the illnesses, deliberate groaners where your eyes roll out of your head and tug at the end of your lips to make you smile. The Gen-Zed new assistant sleeping at the desk and getting angry they've worked for a few days and have immediately not had a pay raise likely because their union orgasms at the chance for another negotiation rather than actually helping them.

Some of the illnesses are obvious nods to Theme Hospital. TH had Bloaty Head as a first mission major illness, TPH has Light-headedness, where the patient comes in with a blowing light-bulb as a head. It's cute, and later expands with a nod towards Valve and the Half-Life headcrabs. Hey, GabeN? Where's HL2E3/HL3 already!

Again, this is cute. There's a limit to what you can do with illnesses and deformities at a core level, and the designers here have found new ways to introduce weirdness to your waiting room.

I didn't finish this game, and it was only in a special game mode where I really needed more than one or two curing rooms. Most of your hospital is likely going to be made of 3x3 GP Clinics with patients getting a diagnoses before being sent to get more data on what ails them, and then they are off for a cure. Pharmacies (run by nurses) and Psychiatrists (run by doctors with the relevant skill) make up the bulk of early game solutions. Rare was a light bulb headed person, a person with their head stuck in a pot, or a clown present. Do you have Coulrophobia? As far as I got there was no cure for that in game, being a clown is offensive enough and you are right to build a facility to get rid of it from town.

If you don't have the room built you can have the patient wait until you do, they'll hang around for a year instead of ramping and dying in an ambulance like they do here in Australia. And while you can quickly build and kit one out to help the poor person, Room Templates greatly speed things up. Or, they should do so, apparently I could only save templates and all steps to place/set them resulted in no response. No matter.

You'll eventually run out of space too, and have to make small decisions on razing that children's playground for a new plot or quickly taking out a room to make... more room.

The room design, layout, and management tools here are terrific! Never have I played a management game like this where it was so streamlined and easy to customise and move, as in pick up and move the room and contents, as well as TPH does it. Panic of previous games like Theme Hospital where it is much more clunky is gone, and I was able to arrange and optimise paths in seconds rather than minutes.

And as you expand, you need to keep your staff and patients happy. Break rooms, training rooms, cafes, and an Outrun Arcade machine. Seriously, there's lots of Sega game gear in here and you can go full furry cosplay and dress you staff up as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy is you like that kinda thing... Scalies are cuter, but even I know this does feel out of place, no matter how whacky the game already is.

The core loop though is like many of this genre. Build facilities/rooms, hire staff and keep them happy and trained, suck up ghosts in an oversized vacuum cleaner, mock up puke, expand your business.

The final mode to quickly mention is R.E.M.I.X. mode, you go back to an earlier town and have a different set of objectives. Map 1 was 10 waves of clients, and it was gentle enough not to game over me if I failed to cure enough % of the wave. It just makes you re-do the wave until you get it right. I like this, wave-mode in games can be fun but the early part of the loop can be repetitive getting back to where you started from. Map 2 was a set of 4 objectives to unlock additional plots in different ways. Sure, it is the same ways you do most things in the game, but this was targeted and better paced.

I so want to like this game.

But I don't. I really REALLY don't like this game.

With the obnoxious amount and presentation of the DLC you are constantly reminded that you are missing a chunk of the game. Each piece sells for about $15 ausbux while not on sale and feels overpriced for what they deliver. If it was just a small promo on the title screen, I'd be fine. But every time I look at the map I see chunks cut off like I'm playing some horrible mobile game after my hard earned cash.

And requirement to have online co-op in the weird way it is done breaks apart many years later. At time of writing there are only 650 players and it means I'd have to be pleading with strangers on the forum to join up and assist in completing it. Let me run this at a slower pace, please! I'd rather keep the game running overnight than have to find some other loser to play with.

It just leaves a sour taste in my mouth that not even the finest doctor could help solve in a game that is otherwise rather spectacular!

Game Acquisition: Humble Choice - January 2020
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 14 April 2024
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS *: Windows 7 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i3 6100 or AMD FX-4350
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce GT 1030, 2GB (Legacy: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460), AMD RX550, 2GB (Legacy: AMD Radeon HD 6850), Integrated: Intel HD Graphics 630
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 6 GB available space