War Hospital
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Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for War Hospital
War Hospital is a bleak and brutal management game, but one with an incredible theme and plenty of depth to keep you engaged.
There’s another way to look at War Hospital which is as some sort of RPG/visual novel. I think this change would actually benefit the themes of the story. There are already existing characters in the story. They are where the game comes closest to realizing its vision. The randomly generated patients by comparison, all feel like unimportant NPCs. War Hospital is all about taking on a role, but you express yourself through tactical decisions. If I spent less time choosing the mortal fates of random named guys, maybe I could have spent more time learning to be Major Henry Wells.
War Hospital is nowhere near the most sophisticated, nor the most polished strategy game money can buy, but it nonetheless does a commendable job of making you feel what managing an overwrought war hospital at the forefront of one of the most deadly wars in human history could be like. Though it's relatively simplistic tactical beats might not appeal to expert strategists, War Hospital's more narrow scope and poignant subject matter do make it a much more easily digestible proposition for both genre newcomers and perhaps more crucially, for first-person shooter folks who have ever given thought to what happens after they pull the trigger on an enemy soldier.
As much as this engages as a sobering alternative to the likes of Two Point Hospital, a large chunk of it just sees you cycling through familiar motions. The rich atmosphere and worthy setting are compromised by a narrow vision.
War Hospital's anti-war sentiment is commendable, but its gameplay and narrative are simply too lacklustre compared to its contemporaries to make it worth purchasing at full price.
War Hospital is an interesting take on the hospital management scenario. It offers up some unique challenges and has some genuinely difficult choices throughout while nailing the tone. Gameplay can get a little repetitive, at least early on there's not a huge number of different tasks to complete to keep it varied and interesting, but with all that said, I enjoyed War Hospital for the most part. Aside from a few instances of audio dropping, seemingly at random, it was a bug-free experience that ran well for the vast majority of my time with it. This isn't going to be for everyone, even those interested in this genre, but it's worth a look nonetheless.
War Hospital is a primarily functional World War I management simulation game that struggles to establish a meaningful connection between players and their staff and patients. As you progress beyond the initial hours, the gameplay becomes bogged down by repetitive mechanics exacerbated by an inadequate user interface with insufficient tooltips and unclear instructions, accompanied by a host of frustrating bugs that compelled me to frequently reload older save files and restart entire chapters.
