"It isn't any more fun than the PC version"

With the moderate “success” of the popular educational series The Oregon Trail, its not surprising that a number of edutainment games with the word “Trail” affixed to the end of their titles. The first in line was the game Amazon Trail, which was simultaneously released for both the Mac and PC. I had the misfortune of playing both versions, at home and at school. It's funny because, the title of the game doesn't exactly make sense considering the Amazon is a river. Following a river is not following a trail.

The premise of the game, or apparently how the game's introduction hints toward, is one where you are a young child magically transported to the mouth of the Amazon River in modern days. Apparently the Incan King is sick with malaria and requires the aid of the plant cinchona, to ward off the effects of the disease. It is up to you to find this cinchona and save his life and his people.

Essentially you travel down the Amazon River in a small canoe, going through several “mists of time” which transport you back in time a certain amount of years. Each time you go through one these mists there tends to be a campsite or village nearby that you can talk to people at, trade for items, and learn new things. For example, one particular campsite has the famous Henry Ford visiting, looking for rubber for tires that are going to be used as part of his then in-production Model T. This meeting up with famous people happens to be the most interesting part of the game, to me at least. And with that, it does tend to become boring. It is the only way the player can successfully get cinchona, however.

The actual “gameplay” of title is very sparse, however. It consists of either fishing or photographing. Both of these entitle little skill, and are essentially diversions.

Fishing consists of looking off the side of your canoe at dark moving shapes in the water. You control a spear icon that you can move to each dark shape and click to attempt to harpoon the object. I say object, because about half of the shapes tend to be drifting logs that only amount to hazard when caught. However, in determining whether or not something is a log or not, little skill is employed. The logs are the slowly plodding square shadows; everything else is a fish or river creature. The only other thing you need to watch out for when fishing is an electric eel, which can shock you. Fishing is essentially the equivalent of the hunting mini-game featured in Oregon Trail; it provides essential meat to your character and is a diversion from the typical gameplay.

The photographing part is essentially very simplistic and boring. The player can at any time go off the path of the trail and visit parts of the forest. There you can “photograph” certain animals and plants that you see. I say “photograph” because you're essentially clicking on plants and animals that the photograph icon shows up on, and you then have to determine what kind of animal is what. There is an in-game guide that you use for reference. There are actually some plants and animals that are not in the guide, specifically to emphasize the diversity of the flora and fauna of the rainforest.

Essentially, the parts of the game do not amount to much fun and interaction. By and large, this is an edutainment title. I do see little value in this title as education, however, because of the limited frame it proposes itself to. You can essentially learn about a handful of rainforest plants and animals, some history behind the Amazon, and certain aspects of various people and cultures. That's about it. There would perhaps be more worth to this title if you could learn more diverse facts and such, but as is there isn't much at all. This title isn't a very fun game to play, and I can't see anyone really liking it much at all.

The game is also not exactly a great game for graphics either. There aren't even many things in the game that are considerably graphic in detail. The backgrounds are mostly static with some very minimal animation coming from the animals, and your player traversing the Amazon. It's not exactly a game that should be focusing much on graphics anyway, but there is a distinct lack of effort on this scale. The music is also rather annoying and overbearing. It is low-quality generic Amazonian music. I don't even think it was particularly created for the game. It is more than likely generic as hell new age music that the developers put into the game to sound diverse and worldly. They failed by more than likely annoying everyone who ever played this game.

In the end, this game is pretty much a failure. I mean they weren't going for much anyway as this is a pretty basic title that is supposed to put learning into a fun environment for kids. However, this game is boring, irrelevant, and tedious. Kids would probably have more fun learning this material in an actual classroom, rather than by themselves at a computer desk. In this aspect the game is an utter failure. It's also far inferior to its much more intriguing and game-like predecessor, The Oregon Trail. I imagine the game would be pretty hard to find these days, and if you ever come across it stay away because it's not worth it all to play the game.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/07

Game Release: The Amazon Trail (US, 1996)