Two Point Hospital is a game that makes absolutely no bones about being a nostalgia trip for anybody who played Theme Hospital in the late 90s. I should know, since it's aimed squarely at me. When Theme Hospital launched, I was nine and my parents, a doctor and a nurse, thought it was hilarious. They were delighted by it; even now, in fact, my father occasionally refers to his work as a Consultant Parasitologist as 'doctor required in inflator room'.
Theme Hospital is very fresh in my mind, in other words, and I started playing it with a sense of trepidation - was I in for a shallow reskin, or would Two Point Hospital prove to be a welcome reinvention of a childhood classic? The answer, I am glad to say, is the latter.
That's not to say Two Point Hospital isn't familiar, of course - in many ways it feels like coming back to an old classic. From the building mechanics and hiring processes to the sudden crises and tannoy announcements, this is built unashamedly on old foundations by those who laid them in the first place. The introductory level is even structured like the first level of Theme Hospital, causing me to place a near identical reception desk in its accustomed place before building the GP's office in the same corner I always do because I am nine years old and that's where the GP's office goes.