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Supersonic Rabbits and Cholera
Feb. 23rd, 2004 09:07 pmSo, I am back from beyond with a review...sorta.
I remember Oregon Trail.
I remember it in the context of a stuffy summer school computer lab, filled with bored, insolent students who wanted to get through the thing as fast as possible so they could get back to playing Sim City with the "Unlimited Funds" cheat. Both Oregon Trail and Sim City were installed on these crappy Pentium some-low-number PCs, because they were "Educational". Oregon Trail fit the classification for being an educational game, because the kids hated it. They would breeze through it as rapidly as possible, ignoring all the sights and commentary (unless I forced them to look- earning me dirty looks), and went back to building arcologies on swamp land. And then happily, summer school was over, and I assumed I would never see Oregon Trail again.
I was right...until tonight. Sandy located the game, and in a fit of nostalgia, downloaded it in about six minutes. And then she began to play, while I watched bemusedly. It had all the features I remember from the old game: a basic authentically historical character class (blacksmith, banker, etc.), landmarks crudely rendered in 2-D, the same five NPCs to talk to, and a family (which Sandy whimsically named after her friends and fiancé) that could contract ailments such as cholera and broken legs. No ninjas, no super moves, just plodding along under the thermometer, trying to trade, watching the days pass by slowly. Boooooring.
Until that is, Sandy decided to go hunting. Then we got to see the difference between a Pentium .0001, and our Pentium 4. I remember the hunting being mildly challenging but now- all the animals were like cocaine-hyped ferrets. Even the bears. Especially the bears. Buffalo and elk nimbly trotted across the stage, squirrels did whirligigs back and forth between cover, and the rabbits...ahh the rabbits were blurs, leaving little phosphor trails behind while Sandy wasted scads of bullets trying to target them. Now THAT was entertainment.
I cautioned Sandy against taking the river shortcut- as the rock strewn obstacle course would probably be transformed into something like the asteroid chase in Empire Strikes Back. In retrospect, I should have had her take the river just for the amusement value. She got caught by a blizzard, and "Eric" caught measles. And Cholera.
Educational Value: 3 out of Something- I don't have a scale yet, I think it deserves a 3 anyway. It's educational. I suppose, in a Disneyfied sort of way. It would be more educational if they could inflict the symptoms of Cholera on the player when a game character contracts it. For that authentic feeling.
Play Value: 1/8: Boring as heck, until the NASCAR Bunnies show up.
I remember Oregon Trail.
I remember it in the context of a stuffy summer school computer lab, filled with bored, insolent students who wanted to get through the thing as fast as possible so they could get back to playing Sim City with the "Unlimited Funds" cheat. Both Oregon Trail and Sim City were installed on these crappy Pentium some-low-number PCs, because they were "Educational". Oregon Trail fit the classification for being an educational game, because the kids hated it. They would breeze through it as rapidly as possible, ignoring all the sights and commentary (unless I forced them to look- earning me dirty looks), and went back to building arcologies on swamp land. And then happily, summer school was over, and I assumed I would never see Oregon Trail again.
I was right...until tonight. Sandy located the game, and in a fit of nostalgia, downloaded it in about six minutes. And then she began to play, while I watched bemusedly. It had all the features I remember from the old game: a basic authentically historical character class (blacksmith, banker, etc.), landmarks crudely rendered in 2-D, the same five NPCs to talk to, and a family (which Sandy whimsically named after her friends and fiancé) that could contract ailments such as cholera and broken legs. No ninjas, no super moves, just plodding along under the thermometer, trying to trade, watching the days pass by slowly. Boooooring.
Until that is, Sandy decided to go hunting. Then we got to see the difference between a Pentium .0001, and our Pentium 4. I remember the hunting being mildly challenging but now- all the animals were like cocaine-hyped ferrets. Even the bears. Especially the bears. Buffalo and elk nimbly trotted across the stage, squirrels did whirligigs back and forth between cover, and the rabbits...ahh the rabbits were blurs, leaving little phosphor trails behind while Sandy wasted scads of bullets trying to target them. Now THAT was entertainment.
I cautioned Sandy against taking the river shortcut- as the rock strewn obstacle course would probably be transformed into something like the asteroid chase in Empire Strikes Back. In retrospect, I should have had her take the river just for the amusement value. She got caught by a blizzard, and "Eric" caught measles. And Cholera.
Educational Value: 3 out of Something- I don't have a scale yet, I think it deserves a 3 anyway. It's educational. I suppose, in a Disneyfied sort of way. It would be more educational if they could inflict the symptoms of Cholera on the player when a game character contracts it. For that authentic feeling.
Play Value: 1/8: Boring as heck, until the NASCAR Bunnies show up.