Reviewed: September 28, 2006
Reviewed by: Megan Dyer

Publisher
Viva Media

Developer
Brain Game

Released: September 12, 2006
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

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3
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1.5

System Requirements

Animal Hospital is a first for me in this regard, and it really is a shame. Imagine being a child. Your parents surprise you with a game wherein you can care for animals and get a taste of what it would be like to be a veterinarian. Practically every kid between the ages of five through twelve would be excited. Then, as you anxiously insert the CD into your computer, you are bombarded with horribly inane music that never changes, except that it inexplicably skips every thirty seconds or so, completely impossible controls that have your Barbie look-alike veterinarian getting stuck on invisible objects, and such a barebones instruction manual that an animal in your care (which, as far as I can tell, is ALWAYS a rabbit) will starve to death before you can figure out how to feed the poor little guy. Imagine the disappointment.

In Animal Hospital, you play (or attempt to, at least) as a vet who responds to animal owners' calls and drop-ins to find out what is wrong with their pet, or rabbit, to be more precise. The way you examine the animal is by clicking on a magnifying glass icon, a swabbing icon, and a diagnosis icon. Then, a menu pops up with bars that indicate what is wrong with the animal, the game explains the condition, and either the animal goes home with its owner and a prescription, or they stay in the vet's care for however long it takes for them to get healthy again.

You earn money through examinations, and use that money to upgrade the animal care facilities, purchase food, or hire on help. The entire process of merely examining the animal takes an eon, because as you watch your apparently hopelessly confused vet wander around in jerky circles to simply reach a counter that is three feet behind her in order to retrieve the magnifying glass and swab, you may as well get up from your computer and take care of some chores around the house, like washing the dishes, or mowing the lawn while you wait for the buggy game to figure out just what exactly you want it to do.

If the animal must stay in the hospital for a few days, then they are placed in a pen. Icons pop up that allow you to play with the animal, pet it, feed it, re-examine it, and so on. This is easier said than done. The animal will have a life bar, and since your poorly equipped hospital comes with zero food, you must shop, and wait for the food to arrive. This can take an entire day. Meanwhile, the animal's health declines at an alarming rate, and no matter how much affection you administer to it, no matter how much you try to play with it, it becomes painfully obvious that the animal is going to be on the brink of death by the time you can even feed it.

Even more frustrating, is that while you attempt to save a rabbit from starvation when it merely had a cold before, other patients will show up, as an icon depicts on the screen. They say things like, "Ring, ring. Is anyone home?" and you must begin the tedious journey of walking your vet the few yards she has to go to make it into the hospital. My hair turned gray as I watched my vet wander around in circles on an open lawn yet again, eventually give up, and stand there pathetically.

Meanwhile, my patient was losing his patience wondering where I could possibly be, and the rabbit in the pen is slowly dying. My reputation ranking dropped since nobody wanted to wait hours for the vet to figure out how to walk in a straight line, let alone let her examine their beloved pets in their time of need. There is no excuse for this. The controls are simple. You merely have to click on where you want your vet to go with the mouse, and move the screen using the directional buttons on the keyboard. You click icons. It should be phenomenally simple.

Another thing to keep track of is the veterinarian's health as well, mainly her energy and food intake. Like any doctor, her job is physically demanding, especially since she spends most of her time wandering about in a confused daze. She also gets hungry. So I fed her. Several hours later, after she figured out where the fridge was, she went to the table to eat. I watched with mild amusement, as she walked to the table with her invisible food, and instead of sitting in the chair, mimicked sitting in a chair by squatting in the seated position, next to an actual chair.

Why so many bugs? How could a game this physically unplayable get published? I thought that perhaps my computer was having issues, but after testing other PC games which are far more sophisticated the Animal Hospital, which should be able to run on a computer years older than mine, I realized that wasn't the problem. Was it the disc? I think not, since it was a sealed copy without a single scratch on it. It's simply impossible to play.

Lines are jagged, and the jerky movements of the vet and animals are painfully obvious. Tree branches that sway in the wind do so in a similarly jerky fashion, and the whole thing just looks, well, sloppy. Animal Hospital's graphics aren't the worst I've seen, but they aren't very good either.

There is some voice acting, all of which is really, really poorly executed. In an apparent attempt to give the vet a caring and gentle voice, she comes off sounding more like a man imitating a woman, than an actual woman. She says things like, "Alright! show me your moves!" and "Calm down. I'm only trying to stroke you." It's a little...awkward. Patient voices aren't any better. The male voice sounds like he's either just woken up, or has downed a pint of Nyquil. One more thing that I feel compelled to mention about the sound department is that while you swab your animal during examination, a fairly disgusting, squishy noise is heard. It sounds like mixing a pot of macaroni and cheese. Ew.