Oregon Trail II

Overview

Oregon Trail II is an educational historical strategy-simulation game developed and published by MECC for Windows PC and Macintosh computers on February 13, 1995.

A sequel to the 1985 game The Oregon Trail (as well as its 1991-1993 revision), Oregon Trail II builds on the original with new gameplay mechanics, a revamped user interface, and photorealistic graphics (with digitized actors for NPCs).

While the original game has players migrating their wagon party through the Oregon Trail to Willamette Valley in the year 1848, Oregon Trail II allows players to choose from three routes (the Oregon Trail, the California Trail to Sacremento and the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City) at any year between 1840-1860 (with later years changing parts of the route, often for the easier).

In 1996, the game received a 25th Anniversary Limited Edition release, the latter of which were bundled with multiple versions of the original Oregon Trail, interview videos, a strategy guide, and a collector's wooden box. It also received a budget re-release by The Learning Company in 2001 (as part of the SmartSaver series).

The game also received an updated re-release by The Learning Company, where it was renamed to The Oregon Trail 5rd Edition: Adventures Along the Oregon Trail (shortened in-game to The Oregon Trail). Released for both PC and Mac computers on April 2001, this version includes some differences (such as the lack of facial motion in NPC dialogue, new music, and some altered encounters) while adding fully-animated cartoon segments (showing three siblings making their trip across the Oregon Trail to reunite with their father, joined by fur trader Jed Freedman).

Gameplay

Numerous additions to the game included the ability to choose your destination, leave diaries of your travels, and move around the various towns you visited. The player could at any time, as in the previous game, go hunting to add to their food supplies, provided they had a weapon and the ammo for it. Hunting involved a minigame where the player shot until they ran out of a box of ammunition. The player could use a pistol, shotgun, or rifle. If your wagon met a river, you would choose to either ford it or float over it, this would begin an animation of the wagon moving across, hopefully successfully.

The game carried over the elements of disease, profession, and inventory management that were present in the earlier games.

Each trip had a different route and obstacles to avoid, Sacramento for example, required you to cross a large desert, with little water, or animals for hunting, Some areas required the completetion of a rafting minigame in order to reach a settlement.

The trails would change depending on the time of year or date. Games occuring in the late 19th century, allowed you to use steamboats to cross rivers, and gave you access to bigger towns. In winter, hunting was harder to do, and rivers were frozen over.

Graphics

Oregon Trail II introduced the use of photographic images of people and animals to create areas of the game. A series of photos were taken of someone doing an action, and then they were played in order to create an animated effect. When they talked, the characters in the game had mouths that moved , but nothing else did. Animals would slide across the screen while hunting, making jerky walking movements. Backgrounds in the game were often illustrated in a very detailed way.