Two Point Hospital Review

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Quick Info
Reviewed by:	Mark Goninon
Developer:	Two Point Studios
Publisher:	Sega
Release Date:	30 Aug 2018
Time played:	69 hours

A Bit About Bullfrog

Bullfrog Productions was a British game development studio founded by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar in 1987 and was a well respected studio that released hit after hit during the late 80s to mid-90s. They had a breakthrough with 1989's Populous, an early real-time strategy game that is widely considered to be the first god game. A sequel was released in 1991 for the Amiga and more hits followed including 1993's cyberpunk real-time tactics game Syndicate, as well as Magic Carpet (an arcade carpet-riding game) and Theme Park (an amusement park management game), both released in 1994. Bullfrog and Peter Molyneux gained a reputation of thinking outside the box and coming up with whole new genres and concepts for games that kept things fresh and interesting. They were acquired by Electronic Arts in 1995 and the next couple of years were a tumultuous time resulting in many departures from the company including Peter Molyneux himself, who left in 1997 to form Lionhead Studios. But a few months before this occurred, one of my favourite Bullfrog games was released: Theme Hospital, a game keen on capitalising on the Theme Park brand resulting in its goofy name. Like Theme Park, the goal of the game was to run a successful business but instead of running an amusement park you were instead running a private hospital. The game had you treating patients afflicted with fictional, silly diseases such as Bloaty Head Syndrome or Slack Tongue. The game had your typical dry, British sense of humour and was a critical and commercial success, selling over 4 million copies.

Fast forward to 2018, over two decades later, and a spiritual successor to Theme Hospital called Two Point Hospital is released. This is no accident as two of the founders of Two Point Studios, the company that developed the game, are none other than Mark Webley, Project Leader for Theme Hospital, and Gary Carr, Lead Artist on Theme Hospital. I purchased this game soon after it was released as a sort of Christmas present for myself back in 2019 (along with Life is Strange 2) but somehow, never got around to playing it for almost five years. It wasn't until late 2024 that I finally gave it a go and a review for this game is well and truly overdue!

Hospitals come in all different shapes and sizes

Theme Hospital 2.0

What is good about Two Point Hospital is also what's bad about it: It's very similar to Theme Hospital. As mentioned earlier, Theme Hospital was based off Theme Park and consequently, the game isn't a very accurate representation of running an actual hospital. Just as it is with amusement parks, you're more concerned about the happiness of your customers, making sure they're fed, hydrated, warm, and not too far from a toilet. Patients will sometimes spend a long time in hospital waiting to run several diagnostic tests before a treatment plan is found, which is why it's imperative that their stay is a comfortable one.

Taking care of patients is important but so is taking care of your staff. You'll need to keep providing your doctors, nurses, receptionists and janitors new training opportunities as well as negotiating salary increases. Doing so will ensure your staff are effective at treating patients and keeping the hospital well maintained.

None of this is new to anyone who has played Theme Hospital before so it really does feel like a sequel developed for modern PCs. In fact, there's even Steam Workshop integration where you're able to customise walls, floors and even the soundtrack (and for an extra dollop of nostalgia you can even listen to the original Theme Hospital soundtrack while you play, if you are so inclined).

It's important to train all staff, from doctors, to nurses, to janitors

Patients are Reminded Not to Die in the Corridor

Two Point Hospital shares the same deadpan, dark humour as Theme Hospital. In Theme Hospital you'd have the music playing in the background and occasionally a receptionist would talk over the PA system to alert whenever a doctor needed to go somewhere along with the occasional reminder that patients shouldn't die in the corridor. In Two Point Hospital, they've incorporated the soundtrack as a radio station playlist so you'll occasionally hear a radio DJ keeping you updated with the goss instead. Two Point Hospital continues the tradition of having silly illnesses with puns for names such as Grey Anatomy (where the cure is to literally give the patient colour through Chromatherapy) and Lightheadedness (where the cure is unscrewing the light bulb off a patient and implanting a head with the De-lux Studio).

The game also contains some clever humour besides the usual puns and visual gags, that can only be experienced when playing certain scenarios. For example, one scenario has you running a public hospital and instead of expanding the hospital with rooms to treat the most common diseases (i.e. following the money), you receive funding from the government only after meeting their KPIs, and their KPIs can sometimes focus on diseases that are very rare and consequently, unprofitable. It's most likely a subtle dig at the public service and its fixation on KPIs and it's this kind of cynical humour that also pervades the game.

Yes, this is the cure for Lightheadedness

More Hospital, More Problems

I don't have much I can fault about this game but it does run into issues with larger hospitals. For example, when you have a lot of staff, the ability to filter by different professions would be really helpful when you're deciding who to receive training. Another useful staff management feature would be assigning staff to particular wings of the hospital: the game already allows you to specify which jobs certain staff can focus on (to ensure you have experts diagnosing and treating patients) but also being able to assign them to certain areas of large hospitals would mean they don't waste time walking from one end to the other. Otherwise, the usual solution involves micromanaging: picking up staff during emergencies and plonking them somewhere else.

The sheer size of larger hospitals also results in pathing issues in the late game. I also noticed the game suffers a performance hit when this happens, with a noticeable drop in the framerate. Again, micromanaging your staff is the solution whenever you notice a "blockage" but finding these "blockages" in the first place is another matter entirely and the consequences can be quite severe, such as equipment blowing up and catching fire!

Finally, the game does give you some rudimentary ways of gauging your progress and offers you quite a few graphs to analyse but it's still tricky determining why a hospital loses money. Is it because of staff salaries? Or is it due to other expenses?

Yeah you don't want this kind of thing happening too often

9

Two Point Hospital is the definitive successor to Theme Hospital. This means it's just as silly, fun and addictive as the original, and growing your small medical clinic to a large general hospital is very rewarding (despite larger hospitals requiring much micromanagement). Recommended for fans of Theme Hospital and those that enjoy business sim/tycoon games

If you like this game, you might like…

• Theme Hospital (1997)
• 1849 (2014)
• Planet Coaster (2016)