Introduction: Health seems to be on everyone's mind at the moment, with all the concern about Swine Flu and who'll get it when. Spare a thought then for the health service, your local hospital, doctors' surgery and the people that run it. It really can't be pleasant at the moment as they not only have to deal with the usual illnesses but also this growing panic which the UK media appears to add to at every opportunity. Hysteria Hospital has none of the nasty smells, liquids or patients that real doctors and nurses no doubt have to deal with on a daily basis but it does have the pressure and time management. Are you up to the challenge?

GamePlay: You play a male (or female) nurse whose responsibilities seem to span patients care, the hospital budget and just about everything else. It starts on your first day in a small community hospital. Each day has targets so you'll have to see a certain number of patients and make enough money to cover your costs. Members of the public will wander in and sit in the waiting area but these would be patients are not patient and if they are not dealt with quickly enough they will walk out, costing you money. To avoid this you simply drag them over to the Triage Department where they will be diagnosed and either placed on the ward or x-rayed. Again this is a case of dragging them to the correct area and then administering drugs which are collected from the Pharmacy, and then you make the beds once patients have left. Should everything go according to plan, you have a happy (paying) customer. This continues until the day is out and targets are hopefully reached. 

You are likely to pass the first stage with few problems but you'll quickly discover that medicine is a question of balance and making more money means keeping your staff happy. For example if you don't pay the maintenance staff enough the x-ray machine will break down, if the pharmacist and other nurses aren't well compensated, they'll work a lot slower. You may have to purchase equipment, drinks and snacks machines to keep the public happy and eventually you'll run a larger, multi-floored hospital which will get you seriously stressed out. There are two ways of tackling this action: over sixty increasingly difficult levels and the Endless Mode which as you'd expect just goes on until you reach meltdown.

Control: This is a touch-screen experience and, to be honest, it would be quite difficult (and a lot slower) as anything else.   

Graphics: Not the greatest visuals we've seen on the DS, it could have easily been lifted from a mobile phone game. On the other hand, the game is all about clarity and it's much more important to see exactly where things are (and what they are doing) than have ground breaking visuals. Even so, you do get the odd nice touch of animation such as the constantly irate patients or the nurses tapping their foot as they wait for members of the public to get better in a matter of seconds.

Sound & Music: The music here is really quite bad and we can recall better compositions on the humble Gameboy Color. Elsewhere there's the odd voice sample from unhappy customers but nothing really memorable.

Dual Screen Use: This is all dual screen but with numerous tutorials detailing what to tap, drag and select, it's pretty easy to navigate around.   

Final Comments: Your first hour or so with Hysteria Hospital is a delight and the simple game mechanics offer a rewarding challenge. After this the game's shortcomings start to become apparent and the problem is, while the overall concept is both original and engaging, there just isn't enough depth to keep you entertained for long sessions. The other problem is that some of the challenges are just too difficult and once you are controlling a hospital with multiple floors the whole thing becomes far too frustrating to play. It's still worth a look though, as long as you realise you won't still be playing it this time next month.

Pro: Original Concept, Easy to Get Into.
Con: Awful Music, Can Become Frustrating
Final Score: 6.1

Reviewed by: Andrew Blanchard