240 - The Oregon Trail

Best Games - The Oregon Trail
 
The phrase “you have died of dysentery” shouldn’t really spark fond nostalgia. The prospect of adhering to a grueling pace on meager rations shouldn’t elicit joy. There is narrow demographic for whom choosing to ford or float across a river while several of your family members suffered from measles and fever was the best part of the school day. 
Presented as educational fare, I think the only thing that anyone ever really learned from The Oregon Trail was to buy lots of bullets instead of food. Food you could hunt 100 pounds at a time while on the trail. Money was next to worthless west of the 100th meridian but life and death pivot on oxen and wagon axles. Finally, and without exception, all pioneers must float down the columbia river. These are the lessons taught by The Oregon Trail. This was the information that a generation or three retained, extracted from Apple II computers lodged at the backs of classrooms across north america. 
I played it again today. The Oregon Trail is still one of the best games.