Yeah about the alterna-title I made a joke about that during a commentary when one of the characters in the game said she would write a stage play about her experiences on the trail. So now we've come to the conclusion of the TdV, and now I'm doing one of the best titles in the Learning Com- yeah by this time, The Learning Company had bought the rights to a majority of the MECC library, which means they own the rights to the trail games, and the munchers, so they all get re-releases, they don't remake the games or anything all the jewel cases and boxes will now have the learning company banner, but this is actually the first game that TLC made on their own, I don't know if this was still in development when TLC acquired MECC, I actually looked at TLC's history it's very complicated, not in the games but business wise. Also even though this is entitled "Anniversary edition" this is the EXACT same game, I don't have the collectors edition where extra characters are added.

Gameplay and Story: So once again we are in 1848, in Independence, Missouri. We are greeted by this old fart that has seen everything, and he talks about the trail about how the Donner Party had the worst luck and so did the Whitmans, we can either form or join a wagon party, we see all of the characters that we may run into during rest periods on the trail, at least four of them would join the player. Throughout the trail you encounter plenty of obstacles, oh you know what something I neglected to mention in the previous review is that you can also go up and down hills, and there are buffalo stampedes, not to mention alot more things that can diseases that can kill you.

Graphics: Man did TLC acquire the other software company's money as well? or their technology? because this is the best looking game of the bunch the actors don't have funny looking mouth movements. Though I played this first on a Windows 95 without a good sound card, not to mention whenever any of the actors move there would be some weird streaks.

Soundtrack: This fiddle fused soundtrack used during the travelling portion of the game, you can clearly hear harmonica's during the rest portion of the game (as well as guitars but they had banjos back then but I think there was a mandolin in there somewhere) the soundtrack changes once in awhile, however if someone in your wagon party is about to die you can hear it easily turn sad, and there are two different versions of it. Also the locations do have their own background music some don't have music at all, Fort Hall and Fort Bridger have the same soundtrack (I think), also when you get to Ayers Natural Bridge, there is an awesome flute solo in there However when you insert the third disk, the traveling music completely changes and we don't get any other iteration of it, it's just a shame that we never hear the tracks that were used in the previous two entries.

Addictive: Again the trailers for games in demo screens have me wish I owned the game so in the first little bit of 2000 I did get a copy of the game. I rather do enjoy playing this game, however if you need to use a virtual machine, I do recommend the Windows XP system (I couldn't get it to work on my 98 virtual machine). I mean going a long period of time without playing the game made me crazy, even though I managed to get it to work on my xp machine in the summer of 2003, I completely forgot how to get it to work again when my system had to get a new hard drive. Thank god a friend of mine told me to try compatibility settings. And that's how I shut up an angry nostalgic gaming demon.

Depth: So we go back to basics in this game we just go right to Oregon, except this time this game is 3 yes 3 disks long, the 1st disk just has you in Independence, and disk 2 and 3 is the trail. We are also offered alot more to do in the game besides Hunting, now we can gather edible plants and we can fish (as long as we are near somewhere we can fish) The characters in the game actually have certain occupations (I highly recommend having the blacksmith and the nurse because at least we have a better chance at repairing broken wagon parts and getting sick, which would become a problem if either of them die on the trail, I also would recommend the farm couple since one is good with animals, and the other actually does have blacksmith experience. Everyone else is basically a wild card if the characters that are the most useful aren't available, maybe one of these days I will do a walkthrough that would show off the most useful people to the least useful people, but that means playing the whole game with EVERYONE!

Difficulty: There are three difficulty levels in this game in Beginner you start off with 650 bucks, Challenger will start you off with 500 bucks, I don't remember what expert will start you off with because I haven't played as an expert in awhile (but I will soon), however Challenger and Expert will allow you to make your own decisions in regards to which way to go on the trail. It took me months to get the hang of the game, I was so trigger happy with the hunting, I had no idea I was supposed to wait a couple of minutes between shots otherwise we would be dealing with an accidental gunshot wound, I lost so many people in my wagon party that way.

Post review Follow-up: I have no hesitation in saying that this is the best Oregon Trail game in the franchise, I'm surprised that TLC never released a version of the game that would make it compatible with Windows XP, I mean they re-released several games, including several Carmen Sandiego Games. And I wish this was one of them.

And that's it for the reviews until January, now since I will not be as active (there will be at least three days per week where I won't be active, but I could sneak in some ratings to still give me a bit of an edge) I'll have plenty of time to pre-write some reviews, It's going to be Genesis Heavy because this October will mark 20 years since I noticed a box full of Sega Genesis games in my basement, when I was sick with Strep Throat, there will still be PC games being reviewed as well, I'll start with The Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System because I'll probably have finished it by then. Other than that, maybe I'll do two reviews a day, and chances are I'll have alot to say, one of my goals is to finally get to the end of Rambo First Blood Part 2 so I can do a review of that, and finally be successful with Streets of Rage 3.