Here’s something pretty cool for those of us interested in new ways to play classic games. The Oregon Trail , the renowned edutainment game responsible for introducing thousands of children to the term, “dysentery,” has been discovered in handheld, standalone form at Target retail locations. The unit appears to be only available at Target and is priced at $24.99.
This little device is awesome, and frankly I’m not even that familiar with The Oregon Trail . It’s a full-color, fully-featured version of the game, and it totally has “you have died of dysentery” printed on the box. But more impressive than the box is the hardware itself. As described by Polygon’s Charlie Hall, the handheld is actually a small mockup of the Apple II, the hardware the game was originally released for. It has old-school computer buttons, and even has a little floppy disc slot you interact with to boot the power on.
The Oregon Trail comes from Basic Fun, a company that has also produced small, handheld versions of classic games like Pac-Man , Q*Bert , Asteroids , and more. Many of these are miniature versions of the original hardware, such as functioning, tabletop-sized arcade cabinets. Appealing to retro gamers appears to be in right now, and interesting handheld hardware like this, instead of cheaper plug and play TV games of years past, seems to be a big result.
Source: Polygon