Welcome to Two Point Hospital where your wellbeing isn't exactly the highest priority. Well, it is, but the success of your diagnosis and treatment depends on whether or not our staff is in the right mood, our hospital has been managed properly, and your lightheadedness can be cured by turning off the floating light bulb above your head.
Two Point Hospital is my new favorite simulation game because it doesn't take itself (or the genre) anywhere serious enough, but offers enough gameplay to keep you coming back for more.
Two Point Hospital is developed by Two Point Studios and published by SEGA. The copy used in this review was provided by the publisher, allowing me to spend around 20 hours with the game before piecing my thoughts together.
Nurse, I can't stop smiling!
Two Point Hospital is a spiritual successor to Theme Hospital, a game that tasked you with managing your own hospital. What the British developer has managed to capture is the humor and other elements that make you smile as you monitor patients moving throughout your carefully placed infrastructure.
Much like Theme Hospital, the game focuses heavily on literal humor and odd ailments. For example, you'll be treating clowns and people with actual pans stuck on their heads. You'll also have to deal with ghosts. It's really as mad as it sounds, but it all works well. And you won't be managing just one hospital, but a trust with multiple locations.
You'll be smiling throughout each play through with the humor inside your hospitals.
Similar to how other games work with multiple levels, you can earn up to three stars per hospital, which dictate just how well that hospital is performing. Starting from scratch, you'll be restricted to just the small corner of the world map, but as you progress through the tutorial and learn the basics, you'll be able to open up and develop more hospitals.
And there's no need to stop playing a specific hospital when you hit three stars as the game will let you continue playing to cram even more services inside the brick and mortar.
Who you gonna call?
It may seem like an easy enough game at the beginning and Two Point Hospital enjoys leading you into a false sense of security. You'll quickly be overwhelmed by more and more patients and factors to consider as you progress through each stage. Toilets, food, drink, heat, and more will become far more important.
Reputation is what matters with your hospital. The higher you can increase it, the more patients and better-trained staff you can bring in. In order to increase your reputation, you need to build more rooms and successfully treat patients. Think of it how other sim games work. Much like a wheel that keeps on turning, unlocking better content as you progress.
When you have a few rooms up and running and are dealing with a steady flow of patients, don't think you can sit back and relax. Staff will need to be trained in order to use new equipment or better handle patients they already deal with, and items will need to be upgraded. It can get a little frustrating to try and find the bottlenecks as there's no clear indication as to what's going wrong. You need to click rooms or see the staff rotation, etc.
There are curveballs that Two Point Hospital will throw at you and your trust, which you'll need to deal with. As part of a level, you may have to take in 10 or so patients with a specific requirement for treatment. Should you not have the necessary staff or facilities, things can start to go wrong fast.
Cash usually won't be an issue if you take things slowly, but you may need to hold off those all-important upgrades until your cash flow is a little more stable. A secondary currency called Kudosh is earned from completing challenges and can be spent on unlocking new in-game items. So get good and you'll be able to use better things.
Your hospital can too be expanded, though the actual building outer walls are all pre-determined. All you have control of is where everything is placed within, which can make things a little tricky when you're trying to save money but desperately need another
Solid performance on PC
The included settings area allows you to alter a bunch of options, and you're able to turn down a number of GFX settings should your PC not be able to handle Two Point Hospital. You shouldn't need to since the graphics are very colorful and simple, but look great when you turn your small medical center into a bustling hospital.
This makes it run very well on even less powered machines. We tried out Two Point Hospital on the HP Omen 15 with a GTX 1060 GPU and it ran at a comfortable 90 FPS on average. There are some fantastic quality of life improvements here too. An example would be when placing objects that need to be located on a wall. They all snap beautifully as you move your cursor around.
Become the next big health tycoon
Two Point Hospital is the sequel fans of Theme Hospital have wanted for 2018. It brings the health tycoon game up-to-date with better graphics, enhanced gameplay, and new features. If you're into your sim games — and there are more of them now then ever before — you'll want to check out Two Point Hospital.
Pros:
- Gorgeous art style.
- Humor. Lot's of it.
- Addictive gameplay.
- Many ways to succeed and fail.
Cons:
- Is a little confusing to spot bottlenecks.
- Denuvo DRM.
It's easy to get into Two Point Hospital, but you'll need to invest some time to become the next big name in the health industry. Two Point Hospital is available now on PC for $34.99.
