As a gamer who's both a sucker for simulation games, and especially medically-themed simulation games, it seemed to me that a game with a title like "Hysteria Hospital" would be a surefire win! Leading up to its release, not much was said about what exactly the plot of this game was, nor much of anything pertaining to how the game itself would be played. Would this be another Trauma Center type game? (Oooh, I hope!) Would it be like Lifesigns? ...Not as good, but I could still get into that! Would it be like that awful Grey's Anatomy game? Oh, I could only pray the answer was no. Or, would it be its own special new type of game I couldn't even imagine yet? That could be exciting too! Needless to say, I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of this title, as it came up as being a 'related' game in every review I read of any one of the myriad of other medical titles out there.Well... I can't say as that this game really particularly fits any of these descriptions. Rather, it's yet another Diner Dash-esque game. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad in and of itself; I like Diner Dash! The problem with this game, however, is sheer monotony that leaves you feeling like you may need to visit this hospital by the time you're done with it.
You're basically in charge of the most ghetto hospitals in the country, and it's your job to take care of your patients' needs with what little resources you have. Now, here's the added catch: you only have so long to play each level, and there's both a minimum number of patients you must see per day as well as a cash quota you must hit. Therefore, you have to get as many patients in and out of the hospital as quickly as possible. Sound familiar? I feel that it's a direct reflection of our country's current health care system. Anyone who's had to spend any time, ever, in an emergency room will quickly be able to see this. They don't care so much about the patients themselves as they do about the money. And if you don't have the necessary equipment to treat your patients, you send them away in an ambulance to a neighboring hospital for treatment instead. Of course, these patients will neither provide you with any much-needed money or boost your patient quota for the day, so this option should be used sparingly as possible.
What's more, you also have to adjust just how much your doctors get paid, as well as your pharmacist and general costs for hospital repairs. The more you pay out for these things, the more quickly you'll be able to treat patients, but at the same time, it also depletes your bankbook quickly. A perfect balance must be struck to succeed. One thing you should never skimp on in this game is the cost for repairs. If you don't pay the maximum price, your machines will break down frequently, and it often takes longer to fix them than a patient is willing to wait for before leaving angrily in frustration.
As you level up through the game and you accumulate cash, you'll be able to buy more and more machines for your hospital; thus increasing the number of patients who come to you that you'll actually be able to treat. This is a good thing! But, watch out: when you migrate from one hospital to the next, you do NOT get to take your equipment with you, nor are you reimbursed the costs. You're essentially starting all over again from square one each time, and the demands only become higher and higher.
What frustrated me most about this game is that unless you purchase things in an exactly specific order and know the perfect amounts to pay for everything, you will not be able to finish this game. You'll back yourself into a corner that there is NO way out of, and then you'll be screwed. Nice, huh? While I do like a challenge (who wants to buy a game they're just going to complete within a day or two?), if they'd of taken this down just a notch, it would greatly improve people's satisfaction with the game. Mine included. They should have included some sort of way to work yourself back out of the hole you find yourself in if you get that far, but alas, no. Even if you try and sell back equipment for cash, you don't receive full price for it, making this pointless to even attempt.
Now for the technical aspects: The animation style used in this game isn't bad...It's not great, but it's not bad. I found it rather cute, actually. However, due to the crammed nature of the pixels on a DS screen, it makes for some rather interesting results in the appearance of some of the individuals in your game. For example, your pharmacist is indeed a black man, but with both the animation style used and the shading in the game, it appears as though the game's developers gave the pharmacist some VERY stereotypically (almost to the point of being offensive) thick black lips. Also, when the quick treatment tables become dirty after use... Well, gross though it may be, they always look as though they've been defecated upon. Either the designers weren't very careful in just how they tried to illustrate the dirtiness, or every patient that comes in has some SERIOUS bladder control issues!
The patients themselves that come in are very limited. You see approximately the same 6 patients over and over again, and often end up with two of the same patient right next to each other in the waiting room. Somewhat strange demographics that they decided to go with here. And doesn't anyone else find it strange not only that the mothers who come in holding babies NEVER put the babies down, but that for all these mothers, none of them come in to actually have a baby? Very odd indeed.
The treatments approaches aren't even close to being accurate. Rather, they're supposed to be humorous (ahahaha, did you see what I did there? ...You didn't? Darn. Medical humor always goes over everybody's heads...), but unless you actually read the descriptions, then chances are the humor will have gone over your head and make the whole seem very amatuer. Let me give you some examples of the "treatments" this game offers:
- Bed - This new hospital bed has 25% less bed bugs than last year's model!
- Quick Treatment - Get patients in and out before you can say 'malpractice'.
- X-Ray - It's 10 times more extreme than the Y-Ray!
- CAT Scan - The CAT scan has three settings: regular, delicate, and permanent press.
- Dentist - We never hear patients complain, but they sure do mumble a lot.
- Steam Machine - Can you feel the heat?
- Mechanical Cow - Stress is no match for this machine.
- Electrotherapy - Make sure patients sign the fine print before treatment.
- Operation - He slices; he dices. Patients won't know what hit them!
- Cardiology - For patients with chest pains who haven't seen the bill yet.
- Ultrascan - No one knows how to use it. But it's so high tech, we trust its diagnosis.
- Physiotherapy - Gives patients a run for their money.
- Skin Treatment - A dermo-treatment that smoothes wrinkles and smells like pine!
The sound effects in the game aren't too bad. Actually, in certain circumstances, they're disturbingly accurate. The dentist drill was enough to make me cringe EVERY time a patient got treated by the dentist, and in some instances, had to turn the sound way down. It's a game you can't really turn the sound off on without it affecting your gameplay. There's a sound that plays every time a patient arrives in the emergency room, and this is something you need to know. Therefore, if you turn the sound off, you're only hindering yourself.
The controls are fairly good, but a little bit glitchy in a couple spots. The most notable of these is with the operating table... you can put a patient on it no problem, but it can be a little more difficult to get them back off of it afterwards. I don't know why they occasionally just get randomly stuck on there, but they do. It's very annoying, since it mostly seems to happen when you're having an otherwise fantastic round.
The game overall is very average. Nothing special here, and there's not much I can say for it that makes it stand apart from the crowd. It lacks originality, but more importantly, it lacks the variation it so desperately needs to keep the gameplay fresh. I'm going to give this game a 5 out of 10 scalpel rating.
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