Inside Social Games

The Oregon Trail remains, with the likes of baseball cards and freeze tag, a symbol of my youth. I’m not alone in these warm feelings of nostalgia for the iconic pioneering adventure game that put you at the reins of a party of foolhardy travelers trying to make it to Oregon. You were told that they would then enjoy a new life in the west, but in all likelihood probably founded a basketball program that would routinely make the worst draft choices in the history of the NBA. Developed by Kickflip, The Oregon Trail is a decently faithful adaptation of the original game, but with some noteworthy alterations for the Facebook Platform.

For starters, you can only unlock new jobs upon beating the game. Initially, you are given a job that you had back east (banker, teacher, Kathy Griffin’s personal assistant, etc.) that determined how much money you had and other bonuses. Some devotees of the series may be miffed at being forced into a set job, but those who play a lot of casual games are used to having to play a lot in order to unlock features.

Your party this time around consists of a mix of friends you’ve invited and friends who have the application. Don’t worry, if they die in game, you can still use them next game and they don’t die in real life. It’s fun to be informed of your friends having some archaic disease, especially if you like to play god and decide to not rest and push the pace to grueling. Their fates are in your hands and you can be as cruel a party leader or as lazy as you’d like.

One major change between the old game and the new is the hunting aspect. If your party is getting filling portions and there is a lot of them, you’ll burn through food quicker than John Daly at the 19th hole. This means you’ll get used to hunting like every three days. While this gets old fast, you have two options. You can play a guessing game (which costs a bullet) and pick one of nine cards to shoot at (some of them have animals behind them, some of them have scenery). It’s like Russian roulette, only with deer.

For the more adventurous, you can go to a shooting range Flash game where you can aim at images of deer and pheasants that fly across the screen. They move very quickly, but if you learn their patterns it’s really easy to come back with 300 pounds of meat every time. Again, the animation is cheap and it seems easier to program than the original game’s shooting system. That said, it fits in with the game overall just fine and if there wasn’t an economy issue that made you have to hunt so much, no one would be complaining.

There is a saloon and a traveler’s chat option to keep the game social, and there are plenty of other little mini-games tacked on to play to pass the time. It’s a slower-paced game than most casual games, and has a lot of built in depth. The developers do a solid job of making it more social by allowing you to talk to your party, talk to other players, and see a leader board. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to have your friends’ icons in your party as you travel. The ability to choose which friends join you and add in random names would be nice (especially if you want a smaller party with fewer mouths to feed), but perhaps I’m looking for something to find fault with, a buffalo chip among the barbeque, if you will.

It’s a solid adaptation of a classic game. The developers could incorporate some more features to promote synchronous game play and a better hunting feature, but other than that, I can’t complain much, I reckon.

Gameplay: 8.5

Developers: 8

Nostalgia: 10