Good game, difficult but fun. Vista Compatible sold out software say but 64 vista!?
Open it up and add in the folder's name that you created in front of the \hosp so it'll look something like "SAVE_OVERRIDE=c:\foldernamehere\hosp\" and save and the game will work and save as normal.
Now onto the game review:
A very good game from the 90's , made by Bullfrog who also made syndicate, theme park , populous , dungeon keeper etc, its a light hearted take on running and maintaining a hospital with all sorts of imaginary diseases and treatments such as 'bloated head syndrome' were a patient has just that, a bloated head which needs to be popped and the excess removed before being pumped back to normal size.
Graphically the game may seem out of date today because its not TEH 3D!11 but the isometric 2D graphics look fine, animations are all good everythings bright varied, shame the resolution seems quite low.
Sound wise everything is again ok, nothing fantastic theres a few catchy tunes and theres a few tanoi calls from the receptionist but there are not many sounds in the game, except the satisfying register sound of exchanging money!
The game itself as I mentioned is lighthearted and the diseases and cures can often be humorous in themselves, but the game is difficult, you need to keep monitoring your reputation - it can dive after a few deaths, work out were to build what in proximity to the Helicopter pad which rushes in patients - its no good building a pharmacy to far away from it so when some folks get rushed in they die before receiving medicine. Also the problem with lack of space is one of the most pressing issues in the game, you need to drag out individual buildings and assign contents to them but theres never enough room it seems so you can remedy this by buying other buildings but still in the latter levels it may not seem enough.
Furthermore you need to be careful in arranging seating areas etc because if one patient pukes up it could set of a chain reaction and before you know it the VIP who you allowed to visit could be wading through sickly contents on the floor and stepping over dead bodies.
Also you need to hire necessary staff which cost various amounts in terms of salaries, have different personalities or qualifications, for example you need to employ two surgeons to run a surgery , a lazy bum of a handy man will work so slowly you'll regret hiring them etc and some may even demand huge pay rises if they get pissed off.
Theres quite a few levels in the game too, each with their own winning conditions, - make sure x amount of people get cured and dont die, build these certain facilties , keep reputation high etc so theres quite abit of variety as your playing the game to stop it getting to boring usually but often it can feel abit similar from one level to the next, also when your hosptial is up and running with things going smoothly you can just alter the speed of the game in the options to make the time fly by instead of waiting around for long for a scenario to be completed.
But as I said, it can be incredibly difficult, you may think you thought through a hospital plan thoroughly in the beginning, but find much later in the level that things have gone to hell because theres puking out breaks and resulting deaths or inefficient usage of space making times harder.
Also the AI control of patients and employees can be very poor at times, doctors and handymen sometimes wander around the hospital when theres a dire need for them just round the corner but decide to leave and take the long route to get there and some patients who maybe critical (have blue sirens if you cure them in time you earn a bonus) might wait right next to where they need to be to get treated, but sometimes a character might wander off into another building to sit down on a bench there even though there was already a empty bench in the other building with all the other patients and end up getting treated a few seconds to late because they had to wander from the other side/area of the hospital!
In conclusion Id recommend getting this game - mainly to strategy fans in particular those who like the 'theme' and 'tycoon' series of games , its very cheap these days, it can work on the latest computers - although it will not install on vista 64 but you can solve this as explained in the beginning of this review (i just wish the same solution would work for an older game called warlords 3 darklords rising but it wont :*( ) its a challenging game but not so difficult that it'll get you angry.
Pros:
.Fun
.Funny
.Doesnt cost much
.Surprising amount to do and keep track of
.Quite a few levels
.Challenging difficulty
.Some catchy tunes
Cons:
.Not much in way of sound
.Can be irritating for mistakes in the beginning of a level to only become apparent much later on
.After a while levels can seem abit samey
.Poor AI