Developer: Deep Red Games
Publisher: Codemasters
Genre: Business Simulation
Release Date: June 2007
The Bottom Line: "Hospital Tycoon" comes with packed with entertaining patients and hospital storylines. The humor isn’t enough to outweigh the limited amount of management needed to perform to keep the hospital running.
Pros:
- Humorous patient cases / storylines
- Easy to learn
Cons:
- Storylines don’t impact gameplay
- Limited management options
- Where’s the difficulty?
- Cannot cancel actions you initiate
"Hospital Tycoon" Features
- Play the doctors and other personnel in the hospital to improve their relationships with each other.
- Characters have their own unique personalities.
- Two playing modes: Sandbox Mode and Story Mode.
- Story mode comes with 12 episodes divided into 3 seasons or 3 different hospitals.
- Story mode plays through like you are watching a TV show with storylines that you watch unfold.
- Research, diagnose, and treat patients with wild ailments.
- Buy and maintain equipment to cure patients.
- Hire and fire staff based on their personality, skill level, and pay.
- Decorate waiting areas, hallways, and hospital rooms with furniture, objects that provide activities, and decorations.
- Increase the skill level of doctors through a special training object.
"Hospital Tycoon" Review
Those stories are introduced with a storyline involving the nurses and doctors in the hospital. By the end of the episode the problem is solved with a twist. Stories do not need your help in moving along. You only need to complete the objectives given for that episode. Objectives are added as patients arrive with new diseases or hospital inspections are required. Some of the objectives you’ll encounter involve buying new equipment, increasing the ratings, and passing inspections. None were so difficult that I needed to start an episode over. There an option to restart an episode through, just in case you royally mess up.
It’s unlikely that you’ll have too many problems. Meeting the objectives is not difficult, in fact many of them are simple. Namely those that involve buying equipment. I only ran into a money problem once, and that was because I bought too many decorations.
Financially, gamers are given limited control. Control your spending and cure patients as quickly as possible, and money keeps on rolling in. Having the right equipment is half of the equation. The other is having skilled staff and enough of them to take care of all the patients that arrive.
Speaking of killing patients, the best part is watching the patients deal with their wild problems. The troubles that patients have are obvious on sight and hysterical. My favorite one is Tyrd. I know when I'm exhausted I feel like I've been run over. Someone that has Tyrd, literally was "tired" by a car. Get some patients with Explosive Sneezing and Jibba Jabba together in the halls and it makes for quite a spectacle.
The troubles that patients have are not always known or understand at the hospital. When a patient arrives they register at the front desk and are examined. If a treatment is known, the patient will then automatically start the process. Otherwise they have to go to research. Then once a cure is discovered, new equipment may need to be purchased. Sometimes nothing is needed other times 3 or 4 items need to be bought. Either way as long as the equipment and staff are there, the diagnosis and treatment process are automatic.
