Hysteria Hospital

Written by Jake Wolfe on 5/25/2009 for PC  

The concept of Hysteria Hospital is a bit overused. It's been used in the Diner Dash games, as well its spin-offs, copy-cats, and plenty of other games. The storyline behind the game is simple- you are a doctor in a hospital, and you must serve your numerous and very impatient patients...

In the demo, I was given 5 levels to progress through, which is more than enough to understand the object of the game, which is this- heal or bandage as many patients as you can before time, and their patience, runs out. The more you serve, the more money you get. If you don't reach your goal in time, you lose, and have to restart the level until you reach it. From what I played, the game isn't very difficult, or at least doesn't get difficult until much later stages of the game.

The demo took me about 10 minutes to beat, wasn't very long at all. Pretty easy. Each level takes around 2 minutes or so, but as the game progresses this probably changes. This game would probably run on just about anyone's computer, since the graphics aren't very detailed, or set high. It doesn't look like you can set high or low, though, it is what it is. 

The graphics seen in the game are good, I'm happy with them. They're not so bad that they take away any fun, or so good that they distract you from working towards your goal, they're in the middle. In my years of gaming, I've played a lot of different games, but I've only seen a few games with a graphic style like this one- Cartoony, 3D, and simple. Not very detailed, but you get the point.

As you progress, you can upgrade and add items to your small hospital, such as beds, drinking fountains, little plants, and some kind of a food machine.The plants don't seem to serve any purpose but to look nice, and the food and drinking stations are to keep your waiting guests happy. The higher the level, the more patients you'll get per day, and the more beds you will need to accommodate your patients.

The patients do nothing the whole time, so YOU have to tell them what to do, or they'll just sit or stand around doing absolutely nothing, aside from getting mad.. Each patient starts out with 4 hearts, and as they lose their patience, their heart meter gets lower and lower, until they just leave. From what I played, it also looks like you can send patients to the ambulance if they need a service that you can't give them. Like, if you can't help them by giving them a bed, or you don't have any open beds, you can send the patient to the ambulance, and they'll go get help from another hospital. No worries though, you still make some money off of them.

Also later on in the game, it is likely you will go to a bigger and nicer hospital, with a different decorating theme, much like in the Diner Dash games, and the story may also develop. In the beginning of the game, you find that your character is a graduate from med school, and you go to your first real job at a hospital, which hints that you may move on to different hospitals later. 

Controlling the game is also very simple, much like the rest of the game, which is not very complicated. You simply use your mouse to take patients to the next place they need to go, by clicking and holding the left mouse button and dropping them, for example, on the ambulance to go to another hospital. The keyboard isn't used at all. The level starts out with your patients walking in through the main entrance (duh) and sitting down in one of the chairs. You then take them to the desk, where they are diagnosed. Then you drag them to a bed, ambulance,or operating chair, and when they're done, they walk out of the hospital. You then fix and make the bed they were in, or clean up whatever mess they left where they were attended to by your staff.

Overall, the game is fun and entertaining, but later on, the game might become more frustrating. I would say it's is worth a try. Get the demo first, and see what you think. If you're bored and have nothing to do, this may be worth trying. It's diverse and different, good game to waste time on when you're bored, and you aren't stuck with the same thing every stage of the game.