1. Since Theme Hospital keeps getting so much praise, I decided to give it yet another chance. I think I played two scenarios so far (hardest difficulty), so still just preliminary impressions. I still don't get it what would make me love the game, even the humor and "funny" animations.
As far as I can tell, the gameplay mostly consists of you first "decorating" your hospital doll house (creating all the needed rooms and putting devices in there, maybe putting some plants and such, hiring the staff), and after that you just wait, watch the hospital run itself until the scenario is supposed to end. Maybe some little intervention may be needed here and there, like making a decision whether to try to cure a patient who has a 75% survival probability, or send him back home. How the heck should I know which I should select, or is it some kind of virtual fruit machine where I just watch whether I am lucky enough?
It is also a bit unclear how I should react if it seems I am not making as much money as I am spending. even though the hospital is full of patients which keep my doctors and nurses occupied all the time. Should I sack some of the staff to spend less money? Or hire more? Or shouldn't I have just blindly built all the needed rooms for different types of vague analysis and remedies? Are they reaking money in, or out?
There's no clear feedback how the little decisions I make affect my success, are they helping or not.
I'm not giving up on it yet, I guess I have barely touched it. I guess the "business simulators" are just not for me, even though I like RTS games.
2. Which is why I decided to try also Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. Seems pretty normal RTS game, so I guess I'll find it at least somewhat enjoyable.
3. I also played a couple hours of Spec Ops: The Line yesterday, the most praised game of all time (or so it seemed). So far meh, especially the gameplay, but the graphics are really nice and run very smoothly. I'm waiting when the story picks up which is what seems to make everyone go gaa-gaa over it. I've tried my best to avoid the spoilers (if it is the story, and not the gameplay, which makes the game so great), but I'm presuming I'll have to shoot some civilian or a street dog later in the game in order to save my comrades, and I'm supposed to feel shitty about it. Or sumthing. As they say, war is a muthafucka.
4. Oh yeah, I forgot I'm still (re-)playing also the original GTA3, picked it up after I finished Far Cry 2 (which I liked quite a bit). I'm surprised how much I still enjoy playing GTA3, a testament how well it is designed after all.
I was supposed to just quickly retry GTA3 before moving to the sequels I've yet to play (Vice City, San Andreas, Stories, GTA4, what is there...), but decided to keep playing it as I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Post edited May 11, 2013 by timppu