Amazon Trail 3rd Edition

1998 video game

Amazon Trail 3rd Edition
Cover art
Developer(s)	MECC
Publisher(s)	The Learning Company
Series	The Oregon Trail
Platform(s)	Windows, Macintosh
Release	September 14, 1998^[1]
Genre(s)	Edutainment
Mode(s)	Single-player

Amazon Trail 3rd Edition: Rainforest Adventures is a 1998 game based on the video game The Oregon Trail. It is not a true sequel to the franchise, but is rather largely the same game as Amazon Trail II, only with updated graphics and interfaces and fixing major bugs that caused problems in the second game. The game is published by The Learning Company.

Gameplay

Challenges of Teaching with Technology Across the Curriculum describes the gameplay as follows: "Journey into uncharted rainforests, where intrigue lurks everywhere in the Rainforest. Along the way, students travel back through time, meeting people from previous centuries who may or may not help them complete their adventures".^[2]

The game aims to make ecology, geography, and critical thinking fun. The game includes "photo-realistic rain forest scenes".^[3]

Development

The game was announced in May 1998.^[4]

Critical reception

GiantMike gave the game a rating of 8/10 stars, commenting: "If you have children, or just enjoy edutainment games, Amazon Trail is perfect. Ever since the original Oregon Trail, this series has been immensely popular with school children. Every version since then has just gotten better and better, and this one is no exception".^[5] macHOME wrote: "It's supposed to be an exotic journey through the luscious Amazon region. Yet somehow, the Learning Company's third iteration of its Amazon Trail program does more to squelch one's primal desire to explore than it does to encourage it".^[6] Challenges of Teaching with Technology Across the Curriculum gave the game an evaluation score of 185 when analysing its suitability for social studies classrooms.^[2] PC Magazine wrote "[players'] lives will depend upon implementing what they've learnt about botany, geography, habitats, and social science along the trail...Such is the premise behind Amazon Trail's immersive, enlightening, and altogether entertaining trek through science and nature".^[7]

References

^ "The Learning Company, Inc. Launches the Amazon Trail 3rd Edition: Rainforest Adventures". learningco.com. September 14, 1998. Archived from the original on December 3, 1998. Retrieved June 4, 2022.
^ ^a ^b Tomei, Lawrence A. (January 2003). Challenges of Teaching with Technology Across the Curriculum. Idea Group Inc (IGI). ISBN 9781591401179.
^ "PC Mag". google.com.au. 17 November 1998.
^ "The Learning Company Announces The Amazon Trail 3rd Edition: Rainforest Adventures". learningco.com. May 28, 1998. Archived from the original on December 3, 1998. Retrieved June 4, 2022.
^ "Amazon trail review". www.giantmike.com. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
^ "macHOME". machome.com. Archived from the original on 30 October 2004.
^ "PC Mag". google.com.au. 15 December 1998.