Headline Feeds
"The Oregon Trail," a game by Gameloft, is available for US$5.99 at the App Store.
Before last week, the last time I'd played "The Oregon Trail," I was staring at a green-screened Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) II in an elementary school computer lab. I believe George Bush the Elder still held office.
As it turns out, the game has soldiered on through several versions over the years. While more action-oriented gamers were busy turning interdimensional baddies into puddles of goo, families of pioneers (exclusively bankers, farmers and carpenters, apparently) have continuously set out from Missouri on months-long, dangerous treks to the West Coast, frequently fording rivers, shooting way more meat than they can carry back to camp, and dying of dysentry.
Now Gameloft has released a version of "The Oregon Trail" for the iPhone and the iPod touch, ushering in a bit of nostalgia and a whole lot of features I don't remember from the early '90s.
Polished Look
For those unfamiliar with the game, "The Oregon Trail" makes you the head decision maker of a family of pioneers aiming to settle out West in 1848. You decide what supplies to buy and when, how fast you need to move your family along, what to do if your kid gets a broken leg, whether to take on hitchhikers, etc. You're also in charge of hunting, fishing, berry-picking, wagon-fixing and earning money, all through a series of mini-games. Your choices will affect how many of your group -- if any -- make it all the way.
The game is very easy to begin, even if you're completely unfamiliar with the series. Tutorials are offered at every turn, and they can be easily skipped through if you already know what you're doing. The graphics are polished and decidedly cartoony.
Difficulty levels can be set at easy, medium or hard, but hard has to be unlocked, presumably by winning at a lower level. The easy setting was extremely unchallenging, and I began to wonder whether this game shies away from letting characters die off. Buck got swallowed by a snake, but he was fine after a day of resting. I made my kids run at full speed with typhoid and broken legs and no food for miles, yet nobody expired. It took being carried off by a bird to actually do anyone in. The medium setting was more reasonable.
Games Within Games
There's a lot more to "Oregon Trail" for iPhone, though, than just managing supply purchases and watching your posse walk for thousands of miles. Every few moments a new decision presents itself -- talk to this person? Take the long and easy route, or the short and hard one? There are also dozens of optional mini-games that pop up every few seconds, and how well you play will determine your progress and status.
The hunting game has been preserved from earlier iterations, but there's also a fishing game and a whack-a-mole-style berry-picking game. The device's accelerometer comes into play with a pan-for-gold game as well multiple segments in which you have to steer you wagon as it floats down a rocky river by tilting your phone, which I found to be the hardest part of the whole thing.
The single most annoying bit of "The Oregon Trail" is its frequent load points. Setting up the next segment of the game never takes very long, but the load screen pops up every chance it gets. You get a factoid about the real Oregon Trail to chew on during every load point (One in 10 settlers died, one in five women on the trail were pregnant, etc.), but those started repeating less than halfway through the first game.
Bottom Line
"The Oregon Trail" for iPhone updates the look of the game by a long shot, and it breaks up the monotony that plagued the versions I remember from a long time ago with all the side games and stop points that come along the way.
It still has that "edutainment" feel to it, as though Carmen Sandiego and a Number Muncher could make a cameo at any time to remind you to eat your vegetables. But anyone who liked the game as a kid won't be disappointed. You'll just see a better appearance, a greater number of decisions to be made, and a few more options for replenishing your food supply that don't involve wasting a dozen buffalo (though you can still do that if you want, of course).
