Education. People were thinking of ways of children to receive such a trivial thing. Games. Higher-ups were well aware that kids like to play games. Fusion. Perhaps there was a way they could blend them together. One of the first "games" to come out of this is The Oregon Trail. At first glance, it seems harmless, letting the young ones get a chance to step foot into the adventurers of the 1840s, allowing them to know about the perils that awaited them.

Then they actually played it. They were never the same again.

This is one's personal account with the game.

Numerous versions of The Oregon Trail have been made, but today, we're taking a look into the Apple II version, which may also play a part into why I don't buy anything with the Apple logo on it to this day.

Anyway, it starts off simple, with a set amount of money, you have to buy an X amount of Y items. These can include food, oxen, ammunition, the list goes on. You buy the things you need, and prepare your journey for the road ahead. It becomes quite a different story once you take that first step. This game doesn't hold back on the variety of illnesses you and your companions can catch. You can catch anything from typhoid to cholera to dysentery. You had to have the luck of the gods themselves if you wanted no one to get sick.

And not only your party members, but the oxen would get sick as well. And for good reason, they're walking a couple hundred miles carrying the crap that you decided was worth holding. Come on, you know you're not going to eat that fifty pounds of wild game and it's going to go bad within two in-game days anyway. What are you, a pig?



The trail itself was also treacherous. Often times, you would have a choice to find ways to cross a river, and in one run alone, you came across at least ten different rivers and each time you made a choice, you were always taking a risk of someone getting injured or even dying from it. Sure, in theory, the river wasn't that deep and you could cross the river without any damage to the wagon, but little Jimmy would find a way to stub his toe and drown in knee-high water.

Now what is my personal dislike with the game? I could name a few reasons, whether the fact that it really requires patience to actually reach Williamette Valley and I would always rush through the game by fording every river, no matter how deep it was, or the fact a good chunk of the game is based purely on luck and getting anywhere without a party member getting sick is impossible. Those play a role in my dislike in the game, but it comes down to one thing.

It's too truthful.

Think about it, all of these illnesses your party is catching were very severe, any medication to take care of it were either very poor or didn't exist at the time. Trying to care for blood loss was a difficult thing to do, as there were little ways to cauterize the wound if at all. It's pretty accurate to what the people in those times dealt with, and it is stuff I don't want to think about when I'm on my journey to a town with my members who are nothing more but a bunch of pixels.



So why do I respect it?

Because I find it to be more realistic than games that developers today are calling "realistic." All games nowadays focus on trying to be "realistic," focusing more on making the games look and feel as real as possible. And they all miss the point, those characters don't get sick, they don't wince to pain when they are injured, I don't feel a strong bond with them.

It's a different matter completely when I play The Oregon Trail. People die, sometimes for the stupidest reasons, but they still died and your other members, if you still have more than two members at the time, would hold a funeral for that person. I felt bad when my oxen died as well, not only because he took the willpower to transport my stuff as far as he did, but also because I couldn't find a way to get a good bargain to get more oxen from other people in the game.



I felt more of a bond with those oxen than I did with Jason from Heavy Rain, I'm not joking.

I also took an opportunity to see a stream of someone playing one of the recent versions of The Oregon Trail, like pre-2000, unsure of the exact year. They really simplified a lot of things in that version. You know one of the hazards that your wagon actually stops for?

Dust.

No one caught a severe illness, no one has a broken leg, a wheel didn't even break on your wagon, you are stopping because you have to cough a little from some dirt that happened to be floating in the air. This wasn't The Oregon Trail I know, long and dangerous journeys like this aren't supposed to be sunshine and rainbows.

It's like if they remade Homeward Bound again, and Shadow never felt any pain when he was travelling with his two friends, despite the fact that he's an old dog and they're travelling through a forest with who-knows-what lurking around there. Also, the worst thing they deal with throughout the entire trip is some dust. Not only would that be the worst movie ever, but it would ruin everything I love about the original.

And it is because of this that I respect The Oregon Trail. The truth can hurt, but sometimes, it's needed in order to make it an experience that sticks with a person for a long time.