The Oregon Trail

Maker:
The Learning Company
Year:
1988
System:
PC (DOS)
Genres:
Strategy / Adventure
Tags:
Educational / Western
Language:
English
Median Rating:
3/5

Thoughts by Wandrell (17 Mar 2009) – PC (DOS)

You are bound to Oregon, a city of the west where you hope to start a new life. In the most boring way possible, just as this game is just about travelling, of the most boring and accident-prone kind possible.

There is no wild on this west. It can be dangerous, maybe a bit savage, but there is nothing thrilling on going with your cart days on a row hoping something happens at last.

Only one thing breaks the monotony: the landmarks. Usually rivers, other times a city, sometimes just a landmark. There you can trade, talk and see if your cart sinks to the bottom of the river when trying to cross it.

OK, you can do a few things but nothing funnier than sinking carts with oxen included. Only second to hunting random animals to find you have to leave dozens of dead animals rotting, just because your arms are so weak they can’t carry the buffalo herd you shot down.

Can you believe this is nearly all the game? What else can I tell without scaring you away? Nothing, it’s terribly slow. Get to a river, cross. Get to another river, cross. Find landmark. Arrive at city, buy what you did lose because somehow the cart did catch fire and repeat until dysentery hits and releases you from this travel.

It may be an educative game, but games should on first place be fun. No matter how boring the real thing was, kids won’t stay around long for this, I say.

But somehow I’m wrong. Oregon Trail, for those who don’t know, was quite popular on USA schools, which makes this game some sort of cult old game there. To me, it isn’t up to what people seem to think on it, so we may be at a case of nostalgia.

Lacking that, the nostalgia, it’s just boring. If you are at a school on the eighties with nothing else on the computer this of course can be a great game. Otherwise, it gets too monotonous and boring.

Box

PC (DOS)

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Screenshots

PC (DOS)

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