Developer: Two Point Studios
Publisher: SEGA
Release Date: 5th March 2021
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One & Nintendo Switch
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility
With the release of the JUMBO Edition, consoles just got a healthy dose of brand new content alongside the popular Two Point Hospital, all in one big package. As a brand new hospital administrator, I dove into this frankly absurd (in all the right ways) management sim to see what all the fuss was about.
You’re in charge
A big part of the magic of Two Point Hospital is being able to build and customise your very own hospitals to your heart’s content. This includes anything from reception to diagnosis rooms, wards, staff rooms, bathrooms and more. You decide where everything goes, how it looks and who works where. Your decisions don’t have to be permanent though, as you can easily move both rooms as well as individual objects, or even copy them, for quick and easy expansion or re-decoration – and if you want to create the perfect hospital, these things are key.
You can’t simply build and forget, however, as each hospital is a living place – even when patients inevitably die on you. As your needs change and evolve, you’ll have to upgrade machines, hire and train more staff and keep expanding far and wide. There are also a host of hospital policies to worry about, like when to promote your staff, when a patient’s diagnosis is close enough for treatment, how much you want to charge for your services, and whether you want to take out loans to speed things along.
Want absurd? You’ve got it!
As you progress through the hospitals and especially into the expansion content, including all the new things in the JUMBO Edition, things really start to get weird. You’ve got to diagnose and treat patients of all types, including some who think they are dogs, some who’ve become 2-dimensional 8-bit sprites, potheads who, well, have a pot on their heads, and even patients who’ve mysteriously turned into cardboard people. The list of bizarre illnesses and equally inventive and fun treatments is long – and it’s part of what makes this game such a joy to play.
How do you cure a patient who has essentially turned into Pinocchio? You have him jump into a pool where he gets swallowed by a whale, of course. How about a patient who’s suffering from lightheadedness? You unscrew the lightbulb on their shoulders and replace it with a regular human head, obviously. While some illnesses are cured simply by visiting the Psychiatry or Injection Room, a ton of them require specialised rooms for these, uh, very specialised treatments.
Tons of content
If you’re looking to simply play through each hospital and experience all the insanity on offer, you’ve got a few dozen hours of hospital management ahead of you. To become the ultimate hospital administrator, however, you’ll have to invest easily 80+ hours into attempting to 3-star every hospital, which involves overcoming a host of, at times, very tricky challenges. Most of these challenge you to maintain things like cure rates, staff morale, reputation levels or overall hospital value. Some of these are quite challenging and/or time-consuming, however, so you’ll need to run a tight ship to make them happen.
Some of the game’s hospitals work a bit differently, though. Typically, you run your hospitals using income from diagnosing and treating your patients. Some hospitals, however, don’t make any money in the traditional sense. Instead you’ll need to complete ongoing objectives set by various third parties, helping to keep gameplay varied throughout. You’ll even encounter a few hospitals that challenge you to diagnose and treat waves of patients, where each wave will be more challenging than the one before it.
Two new expansions
While the original Two Point Hospital: Console Edition came with two expansion packs, “Bigfoot” and “Pebberley Island”, the JUMBO Edition includes two item packs as well as two additional expansions, now available on console for the first time.
The “Close Encounters” expansion is all about extraterrestrials. In its three unique hospitals, you’ll encounter a host of new illnesses, rooms and items, as well as patients pretending to be… something they’re not. One hospital will ask you to spot aliens pretending to be humans, while another will need you to cure humans pretending to be cows – or risk them being abducted by aliens.
The final hospital in this expansion introduces several new mechanics as well, including robo-janitors, who need to repair certain machinery in the hospital located deep within a hidden alien base. Unlike normal janitors, the robots work for free, but need to be charged to remain active. Seems like a fair trade-off, right?
“Off The Grid” is the collection’s second new expansion, which is all about sustainability. This adds multiple levels with new illnesses, rooms and items as well, though the items in this pack are particularly handy for the game as a whole – like the self-replenishing food and water items, that save your janitors from needing to maintain them, unlike vending machines.
Your hospitals will be given an “Eco-rating” in these levels as well, where you need to create hospitals that aren’t just efficient, but also deliver in the beauty and comfort departments. The expansion’s final hospital even requires you to secure enough power to keep your eco-friendly hospital running, giving you the ability to use any excess power to increase the flow of either patients or job applicants.
The one downside of this particular expansion is that, because you’ll be building outside the typical confines of a hospital at times, seeing the actual edges of your build area is difficult, unless you constantly toggle on one of the overlays, like comfort or temperature. It can be tempting to just leave this on, as it clearly highlights available squares on the grid, but it makes the game less interesting to look at. That being said, this is a minor gripe in an otherwise fun expansion.
Well worth your time
There’s a lot to cover in Two Point Hospital and this review really only scratches the surface. It’s very much a game where you want to discover all the silliness yourself, so you wouldn’t want me spoiling too much of the fun. And this game is very much that; fun. If you like management sims, or always wondered what it would be like to help determine the fate of countless ill-begotten souls, you can’t really go wrong with Two Point Hospital: JUMBO Edition. Now if you’ll excuse me, they need a doctor in Surgery!
-K.A. Pedersen
