by Andrew Hockenbroch

Created on: December 11, 2008   Last Updated: September 02, 2011

Think Diner Dash only with medical charts and smart mouthed patients. You are thinking of Hospital Hustle.

GAME PLAY - 4/5

Hospital Hustle starts off slowly, but within just a few levels keeping up may actually become a challenge, particularly if you do not choose to buy the appropriate equipment for your hospital. The goal is to successfully treat patients to improve the rating of the first hospital which would hire anybody and eventually progress to more prestigious hospitals. You do this by dragging patients to the various types of treatment stations, cleaning the stations, and carrying items such as medical charts and pills to the correct patients. When you cannot treat a patient because you are busy or do not have the right equipment you can throw him or her onto an ambulance, but do this too many times and you will not treat enough patients to advance. As the game progresses and the pace picks up you eventually find yourself losing track of time.

GRAPHICS - 3/5

The animations at the beginning and a few other places in the game are flat drawings with little actual movement. During the game the animations are considerably better, appearing almost three dimensional. The appearance of the patients has a fair amount of variety, though it is not unusual to have two or three of the same one at the same time either.

SOUND - 2/5

The music for Hospital Hustle is a somewhat high pitched instrumental piece. Thankfully, the background music can be turned off. The sound bites when you pick up a patient, however, are priceless. These sick patients are often not afraid to let you know they do not like being dragged around.

CREATIVITY - 2/5

At its core Hospital Hustle continues the current trend of Diner Dash clones. This is not necessarily a problem. Clearly the formula works, but it does mean there is little room for creativity.

INNOVATION - 2/5

Again, this is Diner Dash with a different wrapping. The patients and their comments are interesting, as well as some of the animations, such as the x-ray booth, but nothing about the actual game play is new.

OVERALL - 3/5

If you have never tried a game in this genre, Hospital Hustle is as good as any and maybe even just a touch better for the wise cracks of the patients. If you are a veteran of the genre already there are better things out there, especially for the steep price of $19.99 for the full version.

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