The Oregon Trail

""The Mac Oregon Trail Leads You Straight Into a Wall of Boredom...""

Oregon Trail- Well, this game is good the first few minutes, I guess. It looks good from the cover, and I am sure you have played the first one at school; that is how I found this. I usually do not play on Macintosh, but I found this game in my class that I assisted (not attended), and while I was not helping the teacher grade papers for the first years I was on the Mac and the back of class. I came across The Oregon trail. I knew I had liked the second one for pc in the past, so I immediately clicked on this Icon. I was terribly disappointed.

Gameplay (4/10): Well, it is fun starting off. You get to buy all the supplies you think you will need on your trip, including food, water, and horses/carriages. You are responsible for five other members (or three or four, you chose) to get safely across a given route, normally crossing or using completely the Oregon Trail. However, once on the trip, you do nothing but at best drive a boat. Most of the game is decision making from a menu with five choices on it… Will you give Johnny this medicine? Do You want to Cross The river? It all gets quite boring after a while. The only part I liked that was still there was the ability to hunt for your prey, using a pistol or shotgun that you buy with a limited amount of ammunition. I also liked writing in the diaries, don’t ask me why but keeping a log was fun… Until five days started to pass by in one minute… and then the game faded in to the darkness…

Graphics (1/10): TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, graphics. They are worse than Tetris (well, that might be exagurating a tad…) and show none of your actually movements; just screen shots with menus; still pictures, to be exact.

Story Line (10/10): Good Story. You go cross country with a party of at most six and try to keep them alive through the thirst racking heat and the blanket needing hunger calling winters. If you don’t die, you continue. When you die, you lose.

Sound (2/10): Very Poor Sound. Not even the cows and oxen sound realistic.

Controls (10/10): The controls are fine, since you DO NOT MOVE ANYTHING.

Replay (0/10): Why replay it? It is very boring.

Overall (3/10): It made me realize how dull Oregon trail two was. If the first version of something is a poor game, it can be improved. This, folks, was the poor game.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/03, Updated 05/26/03