Once upon a time, a small development team named Bullfrog created what would become known as the god game. In this game you would take the role of a deity and your goal was to develop a world capable of sustaining your followers. However, keeping your followers alive was no easy task, as there was always another deity attempting to do the very same thing, at your expense. It was a ruthless game that tested not only your wits, but your management ability as well. This game was called Populous. Years later, Bullfrog introduced Theme Park, a game that took the basic gameplay of Populous and put it under a microscope. Now Electronic Arts and Bullfrog have returned with the latest in the series: Theme Hospital.
Theme Hospital thrusts you into the role of a director/supervisor of a local hospital. Your objective is to develop, design, and maintain a hospital that maximizes efficiency and keeps death rates low and profits high. Finish the job well, and you get to move on to another hospital for even bigger bucks. Sound simple? Far from it. Unlike Populous, Theme Hospital doesn't have opposing armies burning down your settlements and pillaging your crops. Instead, Theme Hospital has the sick. Not just your average flu-pneumonia-tonsillitis kind of sick, but the bloaty head-uncommon cold-hairyitis-invisibility kind of sick. Research the symptoms and develop the cures to succeed. Keeping up with the swarms of bizarre ailments that flood your hospital takes a good measure of reflexes and coordination, and while no one would ever confuse the two, Theme Hospital is as much a real-time strategy game as Command & Conquer ever was.
Originally designed for the PC, Theme Hospital has made the transition to the PlayStation relatively unscathed. The graphics, while not as hi-res as you're likely to see on an RGB monitor, are clear and distinct. Considering that the doctors, nurses, receptionists, janitors, and patients can number in the hundreds, each with its own distinct set of animations, it's hard to believe that it's the PlayStation moving all of these sprites. Fortunately, the sound is just as stunning. The whole game comes to life as a result of the detail in the sound effects. Everything in Theme Hospital produces the sounds you'd expect: soda machines, treadmills, filing cabinets, video games, pool tables, toilets, men on toilets, X-ray machines, diagnostic computers, sliding doors, people throwing up - you name it, it's in there. Add to this a female announcer on a loudspeaker who constantly hails the doctors and nurses from one department to another, and you have a very immersive experience.
