Blogtown, PDX

Monday, December 17, 2007

Games The Oregon Trail: Stupid.

Posted by Erik Henriksen on Mon, Dec 17 at 3:30 PM

Back in grade school, unscrupulous teachers tried to trick me and my classmates by telling us that The Oregon Trail was a videogame. Technically, I guess they were right, but I’d also like to note that teachers, in general, don’t really understand terms and phrases like “videogames” and “fun” and “the only videogames that are fun are ones that don’t have ‘educational’ written on the box and that teachers don’t try to trick you into playing.” I think the only people who might have been fooled into thinking The Oregon Trail was cool in any way would have to be either cavemen or Amish, or maybe Amish cavemen.

Okay, but anyway: Once again proving that every and anything we remember from our childhoods can and will be appropriated for advertising purposes, Thule—the people who make whatever the hell those things are on top of yuppies’ cars—have made Thule Trail, an Oregon Trail homage in which you, thrillingly, attempt to drive cross country (which mostly means repeatedly hitting the space bar). It is roughly as much fun as the real Oregon Trail game was. Which is to say none. At all. And even though you can pick who’s gonna be in your car, and maybe get all excited for the sweet road trip you and your pals are going to have, and maybe think that you’re remembering The Oregon Trail too harshly, well, then it’s all a bust, since all of your party members will probably be jerks and start fighting over the music and eventually just unexpectedly bail on you, leaving you in the middle of nowhere in some stupid-looking car with some stupid-looking thing on the roof that says Thule on it.

Thanks for the (crappy) memories, Thule.

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Play online here. Thanks to Kotaku.

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Comments

Oregon Trail was no Word Muncher, but it was pretty fun.

Posted by Alison Hallett | December 17, 2007 3:39 PM

to get the most points, always start as the teacher and fill up on bullets.

Posted by miguelaron | December 17, 2007 4:12 PM

I remember the OT more fondly than most of things we did in third grade, especially the huntin'.

Posted by Josh | December 17, 2007 4:18 PM

The first Oregon Trail game that I played on an Apple ][e was so old-school that it didn't have graphics. "Hunting" consisted of having to type words like "blam", "pow", and "bang" really fast.

It was imperative to learn BASIC as a kid though, thus you could change the code so it would have more "interesting" scenarios.

Posted by Craig | December 17, 2007 5:24 PM

What the fuck is wrong with you? Oregon Trail is one of the greatest games ever made, up there with Number Munchers and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

Posted by Andy Mesa | December 17, 2007 6:33 PM

I think there needs to be a poll because Oregon Trail was awesome and probably the first videogame a lot of people ever played. I still remember the dreaded decision whether to ford the river or caulk the wagons?

Posted by jobriath | December 17, 2007 6:50 PM

Damn. I am clearly alone in my derision for The Oregon Trail. (My office mates more or less asked me what the fuck was wrong with me earlier, too.) I am loathe to admit it, but maybe I should give it another try.

But! I will agree that Carmen Sandiego was totally awesome. The game AND the TV show. But mostly the game. The game did not have Rockapella in it. Which was a plus.

Posted by Erik Henriksen | December 17, 2007 6:59 PM

Erik has died of cholera.

Posted by Patrick | December 17, 2007 11:02 PM

yeah Oregon Trail was expansive and fun i loved it.

Posted by coolidge | December 18, 2007 12:37 AM

Meh, I had a few too many minutes of fun for the last little while. I always had bad luck with the old Oregon Trail in school myself, although I enjoyed it immensely.

I'm surprised nobody thought of a possible partial take on the 1984(?) classic "National Lampoon's Vacation," where the family starts in Chicago and is trying to get to a theme park in LA.

Now if only there were a crazy option in the ad/game to ride the bus all the way from Chicago to Santa Barbara...

Posted by Jason Barbour | December 18, 2007 4:25 AM

You have killed 3000 pounds of bear meat. Unfortunately, you can only carry 100 pounds back to your wagon.

Posted by B | December 19, 2007 12:26 PM

Dude, OT rocked. 1. It meant that much less actual work/reading/note taking you had to do. 2. See comment #11. 3. You could purposefully die and leave inappropriate tombstones littered along the prarie for others to later stumble across. We always had dying contests.

Posted by Nay | December 19, 2007 2:40 PM

I put you in the back seat of my Thule. Apparently you have a small bladder and you make me stop a lot.

Posted by Nay | December 19, 2007 2:59 PM

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