Have you ever watched Game Grumps being doctors? And thought ‘Psshhhttt I can do that… and run a whole hospital’? Well my fellow hospital runner… manager? Chief? I have the game for you:
Operate Now: Hospital
A free game for Android (and maybe others but I only play it on Android) where you run your own hospital from the skeleton up. You get the building and then you buy the different rooms (such as wards, operating rooms, MRIs etc.) that you are able to upgrade if you have enough funds. Plus you get to operate on people. And there are “different” tasks in the main story that give you more stories for the episodes. But the tasks can become repetitive.
The Good: The game is very responsive and you do not have to spend any real world money. However, you do have to wait a day for your rooms to get upgraded but the game does not pause while that is happening so you can still play.
There is a collection of characters that have different jobs within the hospital that you can complete.
You can name yourself (I called myself Dr. Death).
The graphics while you are operating are quite realistic and the mechanics of playing is easy and simple to pick up. The graphics of the hospital is small rooms but they are detailed and you can look inside and each angle that you move shows more of the room as if you are looking outside in and tilting your head around to see everything. These rooms are also 3D and you can see the characters moving the rooms once you place them in a room. It becomes alive.
The music is that of a typical hospital series which I find quite humorous.
You get awarded for resting and if your characters as not at work they can regain their energy while you are not playing.
The Bad:
As mentioned earlier the operating part of the game can be repetitive but at times it feels as if it can be hard but for no reason. There are different levels of difficulties (that are fixed) for the tasks but “Extremely Hard” is the same as “Easy” but you now magically miss the suturing. I am not sure if it is the fault of me or if the game is pretending to be harder.
You are also giving the chance to revive patients to have a different in game play but the downside is that it is not as often as I would personally like.
The characters can lose energy while they are at work even when you are not playing.
In conclusion:
It is a worthwhile game to have if you are into managing and running a hospital but once you get really in to it, it may become dull because there will not be much to do expect to move characters around and to collect more. Managing the hospital is what you shall do for 80 percent of the time with operation sprinkled in now and again. Personal I would prefer to operate more and use all the tools on the table but the game has not allowed me to do that yet. However, I would give it a 3/5 for the game play, design and the characters can be interesting (well you kind of connect with some of them).
So go out and download it and tell me what you think? I felt like a bit of a ‘Grump’ while operating I must say.