A management sim game for a new generation
THERE was a time when you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a management simulation game. Titles such as Theme Park World, SimCity, RollerCoaster Tycoon and their ilk once dominated the shelves of your local store.
This is no longer the case however, as management sims gradually ceased to innovate, the genre becoming homogenous and eventually all but obsolete.
Enter: Two Point Hospital, a management sim for a new generation of budding micro-management inclined gamers.
Two Point Hospital represents all of the best hallmarks of a good management sim: deep and rewarding problem solving, buckets of charm and humor and a healthy dollop of jarring surrealism to boot.
Two Point Hospital charges you with managing 15 hospitals in the fictional Two Point County. Each hospital comes with its own unique set of challenges and opportunities, making Two Point Hospital an incredibly diverse and feature-rich game
. To complete each hospital and progress to the next you only need one star, but the perfectionists among us will find great reward in making the push for the maximum bounty of three stars.
Each level introduces a new layer of complexity to the game. Things in Two Point Hospital can quickly spiral out of control, snowballing until you have queues of angry patients who couldn’t be less sympathetic about your doctor’s lack of training in their specific condition.
Speaking of conditions, Two Point Hospital does a good job of creating whimsical and often hilarious diseases such as Lightheadedness (which requires a full head transplant), patients with saucepans for heads or patients who find themselves unable to realise that they aren’t Freddie Mercury.
Two Point Hospital is Theme Hospital for a new generation. Just like its much older cousin, Two Point Hospital perfectly straddles the line between utter daftness and coherency. While it certainly isn’t perfect, any issues in the game are purely bug-related and not something that can’t be fixed through a simple patch.
The construction mechanics are intuitive and reward obsessive fine-tuning, the humor is hilarious, the art direction is both charming and functional, never becoming overwhelming and always remaining readable.
An almost perfect addition to a genre that was in dire need of revitalisation.