I had more enjoyment crashing the chopper than saving lives.
Graphics: 8
Sounds: 2
Value: 2
Tilt: 3
Actual score: 3.2
Note: This review is based on the Atari XL series and not the C64. I choose the C64 cover art because it's the best looking one and besides, there is no Atari XL version cover art.
Dreadful, dreadful year. 1982 was hailed as the big seller of computer games however it felt like a newly founded toy than actually enjoying them. I will admit I was one of them as my very first console was in 1982 and bought my first game 'Star Raiders' yet my first game I have ever played was in...nevermind. Moreover most of the games in 1982 were poorly designed, extremely repetitive and looking for the next cash roll in and Choplifter was no exception.
The story goes like this (and stay with me); there are sixty four United Nations delegates that have been kidnapped by the Bungeling (???) Empire. Now here comes the best part. Somehow you (and take note of the singular) smuggled a helicopter into the area and landed at a small post office.
I repeat it again.
You smuggled a helicopter into the area and land at a small post office.
Now your mission is to ‘enter enemy territory, retrieve the frightened hostages from their prison barracks and carry them to safety’ – that is back to that renowned post office.
The game play is nothing short of a yawn. You shoot the cubby house; people pour out; land your chopper on them (killing half a dozen); collect them and drop them off at that legendry post office (it's a Tardis - looks small from the outside however capable to fit sixty four men comfortably). Then do all this again to the next cubby house until sixty four people are either saved or killed. However as the game progresses, the empire will ditch out tanks and some plane that shoot missiles at you. And if my memory serves me well, a UFO/drone thingy will hunt you down as well unless you shoot at it first.
Yet there was a neat feature that the chopper can be turned for a complete 180 degrees at 90 degrees intervals by pressing the fire button. It may serve well for the Apple (as their joysticks have two fire buttons) however for the Atari, pressing the fire button also triggers firing your weapon (as the Atari joysticks have only one button). So the way to turn your chopper is to press the button, hold it then move your joystick left/right; the chopper will eventually turn. As you can imagine, there will be times either you shoot the delegates below or fly backwards and slamming into the ongoing fighter plane or that UFO drone thingy all because you want to turn that damn chopper.
The good thing about this game however is the graphics. The Atari system has this issue that if you want higher resolution something has the give way; colour. Another way of looking at this: the lower the resolution (blocky figures) the more colour. So in Choplifter Broderbund choose that higher resolution and actually it does look fine. The chopper looks detailed as the people themselves. You can also see their arms waving at you begging to be picked up (not when I’m piloting though). Another neat effect was the twinkling stars and if you look carefully the Amercian flag rising above the post office actually sways in the wind.
What can I say about the sounds. Here it is…bleep, bleep, (some weird crashing sound) then more bleeps. No intro music, no thumping of the chopper's rotor blades (actually it made a sound like shifting sand) - nothing. Heck, if you drop a pin you can actually hear it over the game's sounds. And I’m not making any exception to this rule as the Atari has a build-in four channels sound system hence I feel this game only used two. Comparing these useless sounds to Miner 2049er and you will definitely hear the difference.
When it comes to value, there is very little of. As mentioned above, you have sixty four people to save and three choppers. Once either you knocked off those three choppers or exhaust all sixty four delegates it’s game over. However there is an incentive that if you managed to save all sixty four, you will be granted the 'triple crown' award (I wonder if has something to do with Broderbund's logo...). I actually completed this once (and that was enough).
So it’s very hard to understand why this game was voted game-of-the-year from some publishers. Maybe for the Apple II system (as this game was originally made for) however for the Atari, it's a ported disaster. There are far better games out during this time yet for reasons unknown Choplifter is a crowd pleaser. For me though, I had more enjoyment crashing the chopper than saving lives. Game over.