As I’ve shared many times before, among the styles of games I struggle with the most, work simulations tend to be pretty high on the list. The problem isn’t usually so much the premise, or even the fact that most of them are inherently repetitive, which is one of the elements many fans actually appreciate about them. What typically saps my energy pretty quickly, is that they simply aren’t typically implemented very well. Whether the issue is wonky controls, glitchy play, or even the fact that a measurable percentage of them work so poorly that they crash out or get stuck while you’re still in the tutorial, too often they feel rushed and lacking in any sort of polish.

With that hard-earned impression of the overall genre through past pain, you can forgive my hesitation when Two Hands Hospital Assistant Simulator arrived in my inbox. Nevertheless, considering my love for the OG Theme Hospital, and the more recent Two Point Hospital, I decided to hope for the best and that the setting would at least make the experience more novel in some way. In that regard, at least to some degree, the game does deliver. Sure, it takes quite a while sort of grinding through patients and doing the same things to get rolling, but the mix of consistency, what amounts to a moderately stress-free pace, and some odd humor do at least make for some fun. In particular, the morbid experience of needing to quickly collect any “oopsie” patient corpses, throwing them in the crematory furnace in the basement before the authorities arrive, gave me a sick laugh.

All that said, the overall experience has quite a number of issues that hold it back. The first, which isn’t unusual for the genre, is that the quality of the instructions and guidance of what to do early on is inconsistent at best. Whether the issue is a lack of any direction at all, poor wordings that lead to confusion, or issues with knowing how to navigate the UI to get what you need, the game isn’t very user-friendly when getting started. Another unsurprising issue is simply that using a controller to look, move, pan, and get things done isn’t terribly efficient much of the time, which at least isn’t exacerbated by aggressive timers. Yes, being slow will impede your progress and eventually result in some “negative patient outcomes”, but all things considered things happen on a pretty lenient schedule. With all of those deficiencies in mind, and the fact that there’s only so much variety you’ll ultimately be able to enjoy, this isn’t a bad sim, but it doesn’t exactly have a load of strong competition either.