I Cure Coronavirus (Two Point Hospital)

Game: Two Point Hospital
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch
Played On: Xbox One
Price: £34.99
Available on Xbox Game Pass: Yes

Who remembers Theme Hospital?? That amazing game with punny illnesses that you had to cure?? Am I old?? It was good alright. Here with have it’s spiritual successor Two Point Hospital, a 2018 release developed by Two Point Studios and Bulldog Productions and published by Sega and EA that has just been released on console, and on Xbox Game Pass no less, so of course I downloaded it, how couldn’t I?

Most people have played these games, The Sims being the obvious gateway drug into more niche titles like Theme Park World or Zoo Tycoon, as well as the previously mentioned Theme Hospital. We’re well aware how they work, like most games of this type you have to manage a number factors whilst making money and becoming successful and hitting certain goals. They’re the sort of game you think you’ll play for an hour and end up stopping 3 days later. But does this newer generation of management game stack up?? Well I’ve been playing it so let’s see.

I have to say Immediately I was a touch disappointed not to find a sandbox mode, I think that’s one of the best things about games like these is being able to build unrestricted and without any real consequence so to not have this mode in there, for me, is a bit of a let down. We do however get a campaign so that’s where I began.

It starts with a humorous enough intro and moves onto the first level, understandably these first few levels are very much spoon fed to you, telling you what to place and how to place it and it’s all very helpful and moves the game along nicely. We learn about job roles and the basics of cash flow and really we’re on our way. The following levels add in new bits and pieces as you’d expect until we’re allowed to take what we’ve learned toward and into more complex and intricate levels.

The difficulty goes up quite quickly so really try to take what you’re learning on board. You can always reset any level so that’s not an issue, but completing challenges does become a lot harder and really puts into practice what you’ve learned. Again this isn’t a bad thing. Yes, of course there is a place on the market for the games that help you with every step, but there is just as much room for games that reward you’re knowledge and ingenuity to complete so it was refreshing to have a slightly trickier game to figure out.

And despite its more challenging elements it doesn’t lose its essence of fun. Whilst trying to solve a problem you’ll have funny quips from a tannoy lady and will probably be giggling to yourself about the names of the illnesses such as ‘jest infection’ where everyone is a clown, or ‘mock star’ where the afflicted are dressed as Freddy Mercury, so you’ll be entertained whilst your brain is put to work.

It’s art style fits and the controls make sense, often with a game originally made for a PC is the controls suffer but I didn’t find myself wondering why certain buttons were mapped out and it’s was all still very easy to navigate once it had been found. This being said finding a few of the menus was a touch tricky but were fine once I got there.

Overall this spiritual successor might actually end up raising this genre from the dead. It’s fun, very fun and it’s an easy game to lose hours in. And even though it’s one player you can easily get friends or family or whoever else is near involved to help build hospitals and chuckle along the way. Let’s just hope a sandbox mode gets added at some point, but for me, this game could be around for a long time before it hits the morgue.

9/10

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