Gamertell Review: The Oregon Trail for iPhone, iPod Touch

Title: The Oregon Trail
Price: $5.99
System(s): iPhone and iPod Touch
Release Date: March 09, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Gameloft
ESRB Rating: Rated 4+
Pros: Brillant visuals, plenty of replay, addicting gameplay.
Cons: Frequent slowdowns during longer play, random crashes.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 90, A-, * * * *

The last time I played Oregon Trail was in high school during a typing class I was forced to take for English. The bet was to see who could finish first and friends at the time all fell causality to the world’s diseases, the big killer being the Measles.

Now, here I am in 2009 playing the classic game on my iPhone in a newly visualized manner. The folks of Gameloft had the brilliant idea of resurrecting the nostalgic game only with the modern twist of eye popping visuals and the heavily debated plague of what is referred to as: mini-games.

I first chronicled my journey into the west in our Gamertell Walkthrough feature. Things radically changed by the end of our hike thanks to a giant Bald Eagle that stole my son Billy and the rabid bear that literally smacked my daughter around. I got my revenge on both species by shooting the Bald Eagle (technically is a prison sentence now) and slaughtering more than 3,000 pounds of bears. You can find this game in the Educational category of the App Store, by the way.

For a mere $5.99 plus tax, Gameloft offers players a glimpse of what the Oregon Trail would look like as a modern cartoon. Bright, vibrant colors fill the goofy detailed characters. The father of the family resembles a dwarf with the rest wear hats too big for the heads. Battling with Puzzle Quest and Rolando, I think this may be the best looking game on the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.

Decisions, Decisions

Playing the game revolves around players making decisions vital to your quest. Do we take this road or risk the river? Do we hunt now or make up lost time? And my personal favorite: do we pick up the hitchhiker or leave them to become like that man in the middle of the road? That decision has only bit me once in the butt, but at least I got to meet Wyatt Earp.

Hunting is also no longer the sole means of acquiring food. Fishing has been introduced to the game and is at times more cumbersome than hunting. Fishing consists of dragging the hook into the water and than swiping sideways to yank the hook out, catching fish in the process. Its an easy process but tends to hiccup when users are worried more about the clock rather than the catch.

Other chores include mini-games where you fix your wagon by hitting nails into wood in an assembly line fashion. There’s another game where you can make money in towns by manning the telegraph station at the Post Office. Doing these things can offer up rewards such as health for your family. You can also take the odd quest such as delivering packages from fort to fort, racing, and letting people tag along. There’s even a panhandling game for gold.

The only negative mini-game is river traveling. This was the bane of my classic travels and has carried over into the modern age. Traveling down stream is piloted by accelerometer which means you tilt your device left to right avoiding obstacles and trying to collect gold, items, and children. I barely could make it through the later rivers and lost plenty of supplies and food as a result. The problem was over-tilting my device and not being able to get the accelerometer to respond fast enough to bank in the opposite direction before my wagon collided with solid objects.

The best thing about these games is that they never last too long. A little over a minute for most.

Are We There Yet?

Loading times are something that stand out with this game like a sore thumb. Compared to many other iPhone and iPod Touch titles, Oregon Trail is rather slow with the only saving grace being the informative history tidbits on the loading screens.

The game also suffers bad slow downs during longer play times and has a habit of crashing randomly. Thankfully, the crashes seem to come after my progress had been saved, though towards the end of the game I noticed a pickup of crashes. Surely this will be addressed in the next patch for the game.

Length-wise, depending on how you play the game, the Oregon Trail can feel like you are actually taking the hike in real life. It took me a little more than a weekend to straight play through the game once so its a safe bet that penny pinchers don’t have to worry about losing our on their investment.

Furthermore, there’s plenty of replay value thanks to the overwhelming amount of choices throughout the game. Your career, your travel speed, even whether or not you want to go to Oregon at all or travel a little south to California to partake in the Gold Rush is up to you.

Gameloft has done something rare and that’s turning a nostalgic game into something worth being excited about again. Instead of aching to go to the school computer lab, you will find yourself aching to grab your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Read [Gamertell] Site [Oregon Trail] Purchase [The Oregon Trail]