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Review: Super Amazing Wagon Adventure

At a Glance

ESRB Rating: NR - Not Rated
My Rating: Ages 13 and up
Genre: Shoot em Up
License: Commercial
Fun-O-Meter:
Release Year: 2013
Review Published On: July 13th, 2022
Played on: Thaddeus

Available on:

Windows

Available from:

Steam

Areas of Concern:
  • Violence
  • Blood and gore


How to Save and Pause:

You cannot save your game during a trip; instead, the game only keeps track of which modes and wagons youve unlocked.

To pause the action, press ESC.

Time needed per session:

Plan on playing for at least fifteen minutes - its unlikely that youll survive much longer than that, but you may want to try several times in a row before quitting the game.

Does this game pose issues for Christian players?

Some players may have concerns
For a low resolution game, there is a surprisingly large amount of blood and gore.

Screenshots

[view screenshot]
When buffalo attack

[view screenshot]
Blood on the snow

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Surviving piranha infested waters



Game Overview

Long, long ago, back when home computers were just starting to become a thing, most of us only saw them in the classroom or the schools computer lab. Using them was a privilege neigh unto godhood, so its no surprise that many of us have fond memories of those early days. Aside from MS Paint, one of the most popular games was Oregon Trail, a game about travelling West via the great wagon trains in hopes of starting a new life. Since most of the people who played this game were still young children, we rarely understood the nuances of frontier life, and this often led to many a party dying of dysentery or a wagon broken axel.

Eventually, those children grew up and began making games themselves, which led to the development of several Oregon Trail parodies, Super Amazing Wagon Adventure being one of them. Like the original game, you start off by selecting your wagon and creating a family of bold explorers. After that, things go wildly off the rails in a number of ways. A big one is that this is a side scrolling shoot em up, not some educational game. Youll be using whatever weapons you can find to blaze a path of glory through bandits, buffalo, unicorns, more buffalo, piranhas, and packs of rabid squirrels in the vain hope of reaching Oregon.

Of course, part of the fun of this game is that the journey West is never predictable. Random events are bound to happen, and theyll always make things more interesting. Sometimes you may be required to make a choice, but most of them will just send your hapless party into a new flavor of insanity. A few of the saner examples include the discovery of berry bushes, an encounter with a wandering fur trader, or there will be a river that youll need to cross. At the other extreme, you might need to worm your way through a Civil War battlefield, get flung into orbit by a stray tornado, or stumble across an angry herd of [NULL POINTER]s and watch as the games memory becomes corrupted beyond repair.

The odds of any party actually reaching Oregon are practically non-existent, but honestly, the fun comes from the journey, not the destination. Consider giving this little game a try if you have a couple of hours to spare - just be warned that it does delight in over the top violence.

Points of Interest

Many unlockable wagons

There are over a dozen different wagons for you to unlock as you journey West. These arent just a cosmetic reskin of the original wagon either; each new wagon has a unique ability or feature that will make it stand out from the others. The Diseased wagon, for example, comes with a special disease gun that effectively turns anything you kill into a stinky land mine.

Additional game modes

As you struggle to make it across the Old West, youll eventually unlock new playable game modes. The first of these is the Survival mode, which pits you against an endless horde of enemies from a selected section of the game. When you finally succumb to the crazed wildlife, youll be rewarded with up to three stars for your effort.

There is also the Shuffle mode, unlocked by completing the journey to Oregon once. In this mode, youll undertake an endless journey, blundering from one random event to the next in no particular order.

Concerns and Issues

Lots of low resolution carnage

One thing that is immediately apparent about this game is that its rather fond of blood. Despite depicting the games world in very low resolution, a plethora of red splatters are strewn about whenever something is killed. This is only amplified by the colorful messages the player will receive when one of their party members are killed.

Of course, in order for the player to collect furs from any downed animals, their dead bodies remain on screen until they pass the left side of the screen or the player collects them.

A tiny bit of fantasy

Theres a chance that youll encounter a unicorn during your travels. This is about as magical as things get in this game, so its almost not worth bothering about.