To boldly go where no patient has gone before…
Build, manage and optimise intergalactic hospitals! Recruit staff to satisfy the whims of various alien species, and cure their bizarre illnesses – for money! Save the (literal) Galaxy in story mode, or head into sandbox to design the hospital of your dreams.
If you’ve ever played Theme Hospital or it’s spiritual successor, Two Point Hospital then you’ll know what to expect with a game like Galacticare. It’s all the fun of managing a fully functional hospital, but this one is set in space with not just humans to cure, but also aliens and clones to boot. It definitely has it’s own sense of humour that makes it stand out, such as one staff member constantly demeaning a robot employee which thinks is his best friend, or calling an operating room “The Boning Chamber”, yes really…
Games like this as usually best on PC and struggle to transition to consoles due to the trade-off between keyboard/mouse and controller setups. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the console controls works, plus the UI is incredibly easy to get used to and you won’t feel at a disadvantage by not having a mouse. It’s easy to navigate, select what you need to whether it’s building rooms, buying medical equipment and so forth.
You can decide how you play the game too. You can either play through the story or play in a sandbox mode that lets you create your hospital the way you want, without the restrictions of the story. Both modes are genuinely good fun and if you’ve been looking for a management game after beating the latest Two Point title, then this will definitely scratch that itch.
The visuals have a charming art style with a colourful look. The character models are nicely animated and the framerate is consistent throughout. Load times are short, the soundtrack gets the job done and the voice-acting is a bit of a mixed bag overall.
The Verdict
Galacticare ticks all the right boxes for anyone who loved Two Point Hospital or Theme Hospital, while putting its own galactic spin on it with a good sense of humour and impressive console controls.