The Oregon Trail

So much has been said about this game by every asshat who does something like this except me, the ultimate asshat. I haven't said anything about it and I don't know what you've heard. I look upon it fondly but I seriously question its educational value. Is there a single kid out there that wasn't dying in anticipation to see a message informing him that "Your poor wife, DICKBREATH, has died from dysentery?" Is that the lesson I was supposed to take from this game: it's alright if my wife dies from a horrible disease, as long as she has a funny ass name? How am I, the child in need of fancy learning, supposed to realize how harsh the journey west was if it's hilarious when my beloved family members die?


She recovered from cholera, then later died of dysentery. The tragic tale of a woman destroyed by the Trail.

I was always the banker because he started off with a small fortune. The guy was freaking loaded. Sure, being a farmer got you point multipliers and thus a higher score at the end but was anyone whipping out their metaphorical dicks to compare Oregon Trail scores? Let's be honest, we all would have beaten a kid who tried to do that with our shoes and then suffocated him in Sesame Street band-aids.

Hunting was a worthless diversion for a banker but I still felt compelled to rape and pillage the land with the 1000 bullets I bought. It set me out in a field for what felt like an eternity while I shot the crap out of everything in sight. Then, after all that killing, the game informed me that I could only bring back 100 pounds of food with me. Something that could have been brought to my attention before I went on a blood curdling rampage. Meanwhile, I'm standing in a pile of thousands of dead possums weighing in at nearly a metric ton, looking for all purposes like a cult leader presiding over a bizarre offering to my pagan god. "If you continue to hunt in this area, game will become scarce." Oh, I think that'll happen if I just continue to stand here. Animals now flee from the very sight of me. I'm a legend, a ghost story woodland creatures tell their young to scare the shit out of them. I am the Oregon Trail Keyser Soze.


A nonbeliever in my midst! HE IS MOST UNCLEAN!

Right away, the game held my hand telling me exactly what I needed to buy to make it on the trail. And thank god they told me I needed wagon tongues because I still don't know what the fuck those things are. Bullets I know, wagon tongues...ehhh, are you sure that's not the name of my second child? Luckily, the real Trail also had handy tutorials every step of the way otherwise we would not even have a state named Oregon.

The real life Trail also had an incongrously exciting river rafting action sequence at the end that was leagues better than every other river crossing segment. Coming upon a river was the only speed bump in the rigorously accurate representation of the mind crushing tedium that is traveling through states like Kansas and fucking KANSAS. Have you traveled through Kansas lately? It's like slowly dragging your finger across a piece of cardboard paper for hours. The rest of the river showdowns had three options, all of which sucked. Caulk the wagon and float over, just run right through it (run right through A RIVER), or pay someone to get you across. The last one was the only one that made sense because it was the only one that ever worked for fuck's sake but, god damn it, who the hell is this guy bilking me so I can cross a stupid river? Yeah, fuck it, let's caulk the wagon, it never works but it'll make me feel better. Ford it? Is the river less than a foot deep? If not, I might as well just shoot myself in the face right now. Me and my last surviving child who is my only hope of carrying on the family name: ASSFART.

The only time you could really lose this game is if you were playing deliberately to lose. "No, I don't need any more food. Or bullets. I'm a crack shot, five will be plenty." "Listen, that's not a river, that's the Pacific Ocean!" "I'm still gonna ford it; get the fuck out of my way. We hit Oregon when I say so!" "Well, when the hell will that be?" "When we reach the land of paper dragons and opium dens, god bless America!"

I'd love to be able to go back in my time machine, kidnap some real settlers, and show them this game. There's nothing better than the look on a person's face when they see that their misery has been turned into entertainment for countless others. "My wife really did die of dysentery on the trail." "Awesome! What was her name? FUCKCUNT? SHITLICK? Did you put a dirty limerick on her tombstone?" Have you ever seen a pioneer cry? Me neither but I'm not giving up my dream yet. Thank you for that dream, Oregon Trail. Thank you.

Almost forgot, next up: Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising