Whore-gon Trail

As far as computer games go, I'm a big fan of strategy and historical role-playing games. Why? Because I'm a nerd, that's why. While you were out gunning people down in Half-Life, I was building Rome from fuckin' scratch, biotch!

One of my favorite HRPGs growing up (as it likely was of many from my generation) was The Oregon Trail. I spent countless hours traveling slowly and cautiously across the country, shooting myself while hunting buffalo, trying to keep the other wagon members from dying, and just generally losing. On very few occasions was I able to actually make it to Oregon without dying of hunger or dysentery or something, but it was fun anyway. Of course, that was when I was still young enough to not know when to admit defeat. Nowadays I would likely give up after a single loss, as I do with everything in life.

To the point: in order to rekindle some of those memories from long ago—and to have something somewhat interesting to write about—I've decided to play a short game of Oregon Trail (5th Edition) and describe my journey here in a number of short blurbs written while playing the game.

April 1, 1847
So I set off on April 1st, 1847 from Independence, MO, bound for Oregon City. I have two 40-year-old dudes and a 12-year-old girl with me (you know what that means, wink wink).

April 2, 1847
You son of a fuck! It said the god damn ice was frozen, so of course, taking the game in good faith, I crossed. What happens? The wagon falls through the fuckin' ice. Jane couldn't escape the wagon quickly enough, so the bitch started drowning. I should've left her in there to drown, but she clung onto the supplies I pulled from the water.

April 15, 1847
Took the ferry across the river. Ha! Those cockwads aren't going to fool me with their ford/float bullshit.

April 21, 1847
Great, the fucking oxen can't even walk across a river. I would slaughter them all, but we need them to pull us another 1,000 miles. Maybe once we get to Utah.

April 23, 1847
Henry suffered a concussion? What a pussy. Well, at least if he goes into a coma we'll have more food.

May 8, 1847
Thirst? What the fuck do they expect me to do about that? I don't see any magic fuckin' "collect water" button. The funny thing is, we're right next to a god damn river. How could they be dying of thirst?

May 16, 1847
Strangers ahead! There's no option to rob and execute them, so I'll just approach them.

Oh, it's just some Irish dude. Our dumbfuck oxen dropped all our alcohol in the river back there. Sorry, pal.

May 19, 1847
Broken yoke. This is exactly the sort of shit I knew would happen. That's why I'm a carpenter! Haha, I'll just fix this shit right up....

May 25, 1847
Another river. The piece of shit wagon tipped over this time. Seriously... god damn. I hope I die before we reach Nebraska.

Jane died! YES!!! It's about time. We just left the whore in the river for the alligators.

Oh, wonderful. A hill. No matter which option I pick, it's always the wrong one and the wagon ends up toppling back down. I almost can't take the copious fun.

May 28, 1847
Just as I expected. Shit-ass wagon tipped over on the way down the hill. There goes another 22 lbs. of bacon. We may have to eat Henry to make up for it.

June 1, 1847
Just traded some asshole a kettle for a fishing pole. What a stupid fuck he was.

Anyway, fishing in this game is ridiculously easy. Despite the rest of the journey being hard as fuck, fishing was designed to be so easy even a retard without hands or eyes could do it. You just click once to cast the line, wait til a badly-animated fish "bites," and then click again to catch it. I caught 24 lbs. of fish just doing that shit. I'll bet that fucktard with the kettle is kicking himself right now.

June 5, 1847
Too bad Jane died. I could really go for a blow right now.

Well...

I suppose we could go back and fish her out of the river.

June 11, 1847
"Very low morale." No shit. What the fuck were we supposed to bring, Bob Hope?

June 12, 1847
Switched rations to "meager." I'm sick of these gluttonous ballbrains stuffing their fat asses full of my quickly-dwindling food supply.

June 19, 1847
Visited Fort John and bought me some gunpowder! Now I can go destroy some endangered buffalo and leave 95% of the carcass to rot in the sun and prairie wind!

Fuck. I forgot I don't have bullets.

July 4, 1847
Got some bullets at the Mormon Fairy... I mean Ferry Trading Post. Now I'm going to destroy some buffalo.

Well, I got a bear, but it's better than nothing. Now I don't feel so much like massacring the other wagon train members anymore.

July 9, 1847
Great; an ox went missing. We can't fucking move now.

July 22, 1847
After more than a week, we haven't moved any. Damn ox. I'm thinking about trading for a shovel so we can dig our graves now and save other people the trouble later.

July 26, 1847
Halle-fuckin'-lujah. I had to trade for two god damn oxen just to get moving again. It's been two shitty weeks since we've gone anywhere.

July 29, 1847
Henry has a gimp shoulder. I think I'll sneak up behind him and punch it. First a concussion, now a sprained shoulder. God damn, son, grow some balls.

August 22, 1847
Lost more supplies to another cunting river. There should be a third option: "Caulk the wagons and fuck it."

August 28, 1847
I floated across Green River. John Fogerty would be proud. If he were born yet.

September 12, 1847
Injured livestock. You know what that means.... *cocks rifle*

Who's hungry?

September 19, 1847
Ha! I died of thirst, apparently. What a shitty way to die. I could've at least gone out while boning two Indian chicks at the same time.