The Oregon Trail holds educational value beyond its initial use in classrooms. Although it would be misleading to claim that it's a roguelike, it offers a glimpse at the foundation laid on the genre's feet. Judging it as a roguelike isn't possible because it lacks most of what the genre is known for. It's not procedurally generated, the terrain is mainly flat and navigatable with relatively few quirks, and there isn't exactly a process of learning not to die. In video games, the importance of death is typically a mixed bag. It's hard to argue whether or not the medium treats it with more dread than a television program or novel would. In my review for Shadow President, I spoke of the interaction games provide you and the consequences presented. To summarize my entire piece enough to be relevant, a lot of the impact of interactive media depends on how far away you are from the black box where the developers hide most of their tricks. With roguelikes, that distance is not an agreed-upon aspect. Death is the barometer used to gauge the quality of the space taken within boundaries. If death comes too quickly to account for, it's too far away from the black box. If it's too easy to avoid, it's too close. You can see something of growing pains for this in The Oregon Trail. The infamous phrase 'You have died of dysentery' indicates this; control over the fates of your travel buddies is not programmed into the game and tends to spread upwards until you're met with a customizable Game Over screen. Should you finish your trek with relatively few hitches, it's all too likely that at least one individual on board passed away on the trip. Restarting is an integral part of the experience. There's no purpose in simulating the hardship of such a journey if death always means the end. Judged as a roguelike, The Oregon Trail only has charm in its sparse visual aesthetic if we're talking about the Apple II version. The original version doesn't have that going for it. Viewed as a potential progenitor for some of the indie space today, The Oregon Trail is a fascinating piece of digital history.
With that in mind, I'm brought to a specific question: what value do modern interpretations have? Remakes vary in quality (1) (2) (3); parodies like You Have Not Died of Dysentery or Super Amazing Wagon Adventure don't amount to more than cute novelties. The answer to that question can be found in attempts to mimic the genre that The Oregon Trail partially inspired. I nominate Death Road to Canada as my game of choice for this answer.
If Death Road to Canada's name isn't a dead giveaway of its overall tone and attitude, its music is. Opening Organ Trail: Director's Cut, you're met with a track that blends adventure with caution. It doesn't invoke horror, but it provokes a feeling of weariness that gives credence that it isn't parodic. Within the first minute, you're given a gun and told to shoot down a wave of oncoming enemies. The process is slow and nerve-wracking, building a silent tension purely through the mechanical process of letting a shot off. The sound of adventure is lost in the music, replaced with an overbearing uncertainty. Opening up Death Road to Canada, you wouldn't be given that interpretation in a heartbeat. The opening song, aptly named after the game, packs a get-up-and-go feeling at odds with the premise of an undead being. The next song on the soundtrack, Zombonita Beach, elaborates on this, providing a pleasant and relaxing soundscape worthy of its title. Throughout your expedition, you'll run into random characters—some are randomized, and others are iconic. These iconic characters run the gamut from parodies of pop culture icons like Elvis and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the absurd like dogs.
All of this might lead you to assume that Death Road to Canada is in the same camp as Super Amazing Wagon Adventure; however, its sillier aspects belie a lot of the tension that lies under the surface. The Oregon Trail may not have been overtly a roguelike, but this is. For the most part, deaths are avoidable. Strategies can be formed, and I've played this enough to have a general sense of which paths will lead to the least harm to my party. Not every decision is obvious; some situations will play out like the lesser of two evils. But taking cues from The Oregon Trail, loss is not always something you can duck. You only have control of four resources: food, which is used as currency, and ammunition for pistols, rifles, and shotguns. You cannot ration the food you currently have and do not get to decide how your medical supplies are used. Your best characters may not always be the most healthy, and when the game inevitably forces you to put them into action, this can be used against you. Cars run out of gas and can break down, leaving you vulnerable until your party occurs across a new one. Most of what Death Road to Canada does is unique to the Oregon Trail formula. But it has enough of a footing in the classic material it's riffing on for it to be amiable in its effort to bridge a gap between two distant generations of game design. We are past watching a wagon move as engaging gameplay, and in hindsight, the stops made along the trek make it memorable. The value of interpretation is that both being recontextualized manage to be thrilling without feeling like an exhausted retread. It helps to hammer home an appreciation for where we were at a certain point but does so without being overly nostalgic or sentimental. Calling Death Road to Canada a piece of history is over-selling it, but as a way of understanding digital history without having to resort to people who were "there," it's worthy of the comparisons I've made thus far.
What bumps my score from four stars to four-and-a-half is multiplayer. This game is a genuinely enjoyable time with friends, granted they're in the mood for something this whacky—and you're playing on the mode that lets you start with four people if you're playing with more than one other person. I didn't realize that was an option until recently and having had experience trying modes that aren't the four-player one with four people in the room, it's the best way to ensure that a game of this doesn't get derailed by two people who don't want to wait for someone to show up. When you get everything set up, it's an outrageous experience that few games of this type provide, and it heightens the best of what's on offer.
If modern interpretations of The Oregon Trail were as fun as this, emulated version of the Apple II version would have less novelty.
(Recommended reading that I couldn't fit into the review)
With that in mind, I'm brought to a specific question: what value do modern interpretations have? Remakes vary in quality (1) (2) (3); parodies like You Have Not Died of Dysentery or Super Amazing Wagon Adventure don't amount to more than cute novelties. The answer to that question can be found in attempts to mimic the genre that The Oregon Trail partially inspired. I nominate Death Road to Canada as my game of choice for this answer.
If Death Road to Canada's name isn't a dead giveaway of its overall tone and attitude, its music is. Opening Organ Trail: Director's Cut, you're met with a track that blends adventure with caution. It doesn't invoke horror, but it provokes a feeling of weariness that gives credence that it isn't parodic. Within the first minute, you're given a gun and told to shoot down a wave of oncoming enemies. The process is slow and nerve-wracking, building a silent tension purely through the mechanical process of letting a shot off. The sound of adventure is lost in the music, replaced with an overbearing uncertainty. Opening up Death Road to Canada, you wouldn't be given that interpretation in a heartbeat. The opening song, aptly named after the game, packs a get-up-and-go feeling at odds with the premise of an undead being. The next song on the soundtrack, Zombonita Beach, elaborates on this, providing a pleasant and relaxing soundscape worthy of its title. Throughout your expedition, you'll run into random characters—some are randomized, and others are iconic. These iconic characters run the gamut from parodies of pop culture icons like Elvis and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the absurd like dogs.
All of this might lead you to assume that Death Road to Canada is in the same camp as Super Amazing Wagon Adventure; however, its sillier aspects belie a lot of the tension that lies under the surface. The Oregon Trail may not have been overtly a roguelike, but this is. For the most part, deaths are avoidable. Strategies can be formed, and I've played this enough to have a general sense of which paths will lead to the least harm to my party. Not every decision is obvious; some situations will play out like the lesser of two evils. But taking cues from The Oregon Trail, loss is not always something you can duck. You only have control of four resources: food, which is used as currency, and ammunition for pistols, rifles, and shotguns. You cannot ration the food you currently have and do not get to decide how your medical supplies are used. Your best characters may not always be the most healthy, and when the game inevitably forces you to put them into action, this can be used against you. Cars run out of gas and can break down, leaving you vulnerable until your party occurs across a new one. Most of what Death Road to Canada does is unique to the Oregon Trail formula. But it has enough of a footing in the classic material it's riffing on for it to be amiable in its effort to bridge a gap between two distant generations of game design. We are past watching a wagon move as engaging gameplay, and in hindsight, the stops made along the trek make it memorable. The value of interpretation is that both being recontextualized manage to be thrilling without feeling like an exhausted retread. It helps to hammer home an appreciation for where we were at a certain point but does so without being overly nostalgic or sentimental. Calling Death Road to Canada a piece of history is over-selling it, but as a way of understanding digital history without having to resort to people who were "there," it's worthy of the comparisons I've made thus far.
What bumps my score from four stars to four-and-a-half is multiplayer. This game is a genuinely enjoyable time with friends, granted they're in the mood for something this whacky—and you're playing on the mode that lets you start with four people if you're playing with more than one other person. I didn't realize that was an option until recently and having had experience trying modes that aren't the four-player one with four people in the room, it's the best way to ensure that a game of this doesn't get derailed by two people who don't want to wait for someone to show up. When you get everything set up, it's an outrageous experience that few games of this type provide, and it heightens the best of what's on offer.
If modern interpretations of The Oregon Trail were as fun as this, emulated version of the Apple II version would have less novelty.
(Recommended reading that I couldn't fit into the review)
4 Comments
Very interesting point about the black box of tricks in relation to interactivity. It's important to note that the word 'rougelike' was not a thing when Oregon Trail dropped. The name of the genre stemmed from Rogue which came out in 1980. So in that way Oregon Trail is a proto-rougelike. In actuality its function was a simulator in which case the RNG dysentary makes sense because you were living in a time where germ theory wasn't even known yet. Illness in those days has the same randomness of people who dont believe in wearing masks during covid does. You get the illness and you have no clue why, its realistic. What's realistic doesn't always make for interesting gameplay experiences though, and this game giving a domino effect of consequences certainly makes it excel along those dimensions.
No worries about the Italics, quality control is a phantasm that pulls all of us down imo.
No worries about the Italics, quality control is a phantasm that pulls all of us down imo.
@Erato_Heti Thanks for the feedback and for stopping by!
No worries, well done! Take care man.
Yultimona
1 year ago