The Oregon Trail, 5th Edition

by The Learning Company

Product 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

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.4 x 5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005LBVS
• Item model number: 380859
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 1, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (247 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #1 in Software > Children's Software > Games
  • #15 in Software > Education & Reference
  • #45 in Software > The Mac Software Store
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

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

Product Description

Platform:  WINDOWS & MACINTOSH Publisher:  LEARNING COMPANY Packaging:  JEWEL CASE Rating:  AGES: 9 AND UP Explore the West! Live the Adventure! Survive the Trail!  Westward Ho! Are you ready to travel the Oregon Trail? It s going to take insight and careful planning to choose the right traveling companions gear and supplies. Even then there are countless unpredictable hazards like swollen rivers poisonous creatures and deadly diseases. You ll have to strategize and make quick decisions. And they ll have to be right.Create Your JourneyDecide your occupation who you ll take with you and where you re headed!Learn From the PioneersTalk with pioneers Irish African Americans Native Americans and other settlers. Share their dreams fears and adventures.Blaze a TrailFord raging rivers. Hunt fish and forage for food. Be a part of the taming of the wild West. From the banks of the great Mississippi to the sweeping Williamette Valley you ll carve your own trail through an historic adventure.Discover Jed s TalesThrough riveting mini-movies you ll befriend Captain Jed Freedman an experienced fur trader who is trail-wise and a great story-teller! System Requirements for Windows Windows 98 2000 Me XP Pentium166 MHz or faster 32 MB RAM 120 MB free hard disk space 640x480 monitor 16-bit color Windows-compatible sound card & speakers 8X CD-ROM drive System Requirements for Macintosh Mac OS 8.6 9.2 OS X Power PC 180 MHz or faster 32 MB RAM 120 MB free hard disk space 640x480 monitor thousands of colors 8X CD-ROM drive

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun for everyone involved, April 11, 2006

By 

M. Hudgens "mhleigh" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

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.

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I have all 5 version and this is the most fun!, November 16, 2003

By 

Tamara Beckner "tammybeck1" (Fontana, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Oregon Trail, 5th Edition (Software)

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.

69 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More stable but less interesting than version 4, June 15, 2002

By 

paul (Atlanta Ga. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oregon Trail, 5th Edition (Software)

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.