Product Description

The Oregon Trail 5th Edition takes you along with a family as they travel 2000 miles along the legendary Oregon Trail!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #110 in Software
• Brand: The Learning Company
• Model: 380859
• Platforms: Mac, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows, Windows 95
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: .44 pounds

Features

• Make the wise choices as you avoid hazards and face the many challenges of frontier life
• Go hunting, buy the right supplies, talk to Indians and fellow travelers and much more
• Along the way you'll discover useful wilderness knowledge like avoiding poison and crossing rivers
• Kids will also get to learn the complete story of the Donner Party
• Ages 9 and up

Amazon.com Review
A decidedly low-tech era in U.S. history goes electronic in Oregon Trail 5th Edition, a game for children ages nine and older that pits players against all the hazards a wagon-train voyage can dish out. Following Captain Jed Freedman and a trio of young pioneers out West, this program teaches history, map reading, geography, and a variety of other skills. Players must keep their wits sharp if they want to keep their party healthy and well-fed all the way across the country.

Oregon Trail 5th Edition offers a good all-around workout in reading skills and problem solving. Using limited funds, players must equip their wagons, balancing the need to survive on the trail with the necessity for moving quickly. Shortages will inevitably crop up along the way, and members of the wagon train can die of thirst, fever, snakebite, or many other perils... if you don't have the right equipment on hand to deal with the emergency. Even a well-equipped party can come to grief, though. Swamped wagons can lose critical supplies, and though there are people sprinkled along the trip who might provide help or trade goods, happening on the right trade is by no means assured.

Except for being a bit slow-paced, Oregon Trail 5th Edition has few flaws. The people aboard the wagon trains come from a variety of cultures. Though the game glosses over the ugliest aspects of this historical period, it does not skirt them entirely. Players who over-hunt the resources of a particular native tribe are likely to hear about it. The game has a variety of features that flesh out the travel experience, like a trip diary and animated campfire tales--one of them about the Donner party--that effectively break up the pace of play.

For children interested in a multifaceted educational challenge, Oregon Trail makes a good choice, capturing the difficulties and dangers of the long voyages that settlers made so long ago. (Ages 9 and older) --Alyx Dellamonica

From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"
Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take one step forward. That holds true for this "new" version of Oregon Trail, which is actually based on the older, more stable second edition of the game; one of the last products produced by the respected Minnesota publisher MECC. Children start their trek westward by typing in their name, profession, and the names of people in their party. They then navigate through a series of complex menus to purchase supplies and stock their wagon. Unfortunately, some of the flaws with version two have also been carried into this edition. Children often overload their wagon, and the program doesn't help them visualize what they have. Kids also have trouble with some new phrases that could be better defined, such as "caulk the wagons" and "ford the river". Along the trail, it is possible to hunt, fish and interact with characters. So what's different? At each main break in the adventure, children can listen to campfire stories about three real life children who actually traveled the Oregon Trail. Our testers loved these vignettes and felt like they helped them better understand what the journey was really like. The children's journal is also on the CD as a PDF file, which makes good reading. Despite its flaws, this edition of Oregon Trail is the best yet, and a great way to experience American history.

Amazon.com Product Description
Explore the West, live the adventure, and survive the trail! Kids will build real-life decision-making and problem-solving skills as they choose their wagon party and supplies, read maps, plan their route, and guide their team through the wilderness. Can they survive the dangers of the long journey, raging rivers, buffalo stampedes, sickness, and starvation? The trail explodes with adventure as you face the rugged challenges and experience real-life events.

Plus, The Oregon Trail 5th Edition introduces players to the Montgomery kids and trail guide Captain Jed, who are heading West from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, to meet Pa Montgomery. The Montgomery's story is brought to life for players through six exciting movies, Cassie's heartfelt journal entries, and Jed's captivating campfire tales.

Customer Reviews

Fun for everyone involved
I was very happy with this game- it took the bets parts of the previous Oregon Trail incarnations and wove them together for a good overall product. I can appreciate a company which recognizes both the weaknesses and the strengths of their products and uses this information to get better. In this Oregon Trail you can once again chose how many you will travel with and name them (for some crazy reason this feature was eliminated in the 4th Oregon Trail edition), but you can also CHOOSE the times you stop to collect wild fruit or fish, instead of these circumstances just happening randomly (which does not make as much sense). To me, these were the biggest changes to previous games, but they were improvements.

Aside from the above changes, the basics of the game remain the same, and it will look familiar to those who have played other editions. A few things have been updated, particularly some aspects concerning Native Americans and some geography, but the good times still keep rolling.

I have all 5 version and this is the most fun!
Both my son & I started playing Version 1 (which is great for kids), but the graphics aren't great. Version 2 gives you more options, and I get to shop and keep a budget. Shooting food & steering down the rapids is more fun also. Versions 3 & 4 were more complicated because of more choices (who will you chose to be in your wagon, fishing, trading & plant gaithering). There's 3 disks with 3 & 4 and NO LEGEND (highscore list), but you do get to chose what you want to trade. VERSION 5 IS 1 DISK, but you can FISH,HUNT,GAITHER PLANTS,SHOP,TRADE(their choice)& log your high scores. Start out as a green horn; continue as an expert trailguide. If you're a farmer you don't have much money & must budget your supplies & money, but your score is times 4.5. While a banker has money, but really has to avoid the temptation of over loading his wagon. You can have 1 to 5 people ride in the wagon with you and you can name them or the computer will. When my son was under 11, he had me start the game by buying the supplies, then he'd take over. He loved the hunting and fishing. When I played the game I'd call him over to finish it by "riding the rapids" (with his fast reflexes, better than me). If you like making choices in a game this may be the game for you. Remember when gaithering plants the bright red berries are poisonous. If you have them for supper you die, game over. It helps to save your game before that happens, so if a mistake happens, you can exit and return.

More stable but less interesting than version 4
Version 4 was full of bugs and agonizingly slow but it clearly reflected an effort to expand the game and make it more interesting.

This version reverses direction. It is quite stable and should run on just about any recently purchased Windows computer.

The trade off is the game play is diminished. The other members of your party no longer have occupations or much personality. The screen no longer scrolls as you hunt. There are less choices to make and overall the game is more likely to bore the adult who tries to play it with children. The only thing not simpler is the the purchasing that still confused my 9 year old brother (who is good at math) so badly I had to make his purchases for him to keep him from quitting.

The lack of feedback at the end of the game is quite irritating. No longer can you tell what items that you were carrying were worth something once you got to to Oregon. So you can't tell what to bring next time. Was the Grandfather clock worth more in Oregon? How about the extra supplies your carried? You will never know.

Overall it is a big step down from version 4 except for being more stable.