Choplifter!

aka: Choplifter
Moby ID: 8127
Buy on Atari 7800
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Description official descriptions

Choplifter! is a side-scrolling action/arcade game that puts the player in command of an attack chopper. The mission: Go behind enemy lines and rescue up to 64 hostages. However, the chopper can only carry 16 passengers at a time, so several rescue attempts must be made to rescue everyone. Be careful, though, because tanks and enemy aircraft will try to stop you - and they won't stop shooting while the rescuing of hostages is going on

Originally released for Apple II home computers, Choplifter! was later ported to the arcades in a rare instance of a home version receiving a later arcade release.

However while the basic gameplay stayed the same, alterations to the original version were made.

  • The game now consists of four different levels. The original's desert level has been redesigned, and three new settings (sea, caves and city rooftops) have been added.
  • Each level contains only a total of 24 hostages to rescue. The player has to rescue at least 20 hostages to complete a level. Also, the chopper can now only carry 8 passengers at a time.
  • A fuel system was added. A unit of fuel gets refilled for each hostage returned safely.
  • A scoring system was added.
  • New stationary ground-to-air missiles enemy units have been added.

The Famicom and Sega Master System versions are based on this Arcade version. The Sega Master System has six levels (three of the levels repeating just with different backgrounds; no city rooftops level), gets rid of the fuel system, and requires 40 out of the 48 hostages to be rescued to complete a level (the chopper can now carry 16 passengers just like in the original version).

Spellings

  • チョップリフター - Japanese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Apple II version)

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Cover Art Illustrator

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 113 ratings with 6 reviews)

A super-stressful little game from the mid-80s

The Good
Choplifter features engaging music, colorful and exciting environments, fast and challenging gameplay, and a whole lot of stress! Your goal is to pass over enemy territory, blow open a base with your machine gun, and airlift escaped POWs back to your base. The first level is a desert battleground, the second an upland mountain region, the third is at sea (where you land on battleships and have subs firing on you), and the fourth features a horrible cave with stalactites and stalagmites looming all around. Suffice to say I never made it past this level but from what I have read it was the last one.

The Bad
I owned this game as a kid but rarely played it. It was more an ordeal than a fun experience. When you land your helicopter to rescue hostages, you will crush and kill them if you don't land beside rather than on them. Machine gun fire is hard to spot (being a pixel or two large), enemy planes and missiles come flying at you at great speed with barely any warning -- this game is a real nightmare, highly stressful, and not at all addictive.

The Bottom Line
A challenging and marginally-rewarding action game from 1986. I'll be happy to live a thousand years and never play this dreadful cartridge again.

SEGA Master System · by Chris Wright (85) · 2011

Excellent port from Sega

The Good
Dan Gorlin's game, Choplifter, was the king of search-and-rescue games, and it even sold more copies than the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. It first appeared on all computers and consoles, such as Apple ][, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, and Atari 5200/7800, but later, the game was eventually ported over to the NES and the Sega Master System. It was the latter port that appealed to me.

Choplifter was appropriately named because you control a helicopter that must use its missiles to blow up prisons and rescue hostages, and to do this, you land near the prison and stay there until all the hostages are on board. You then take off again and transport them safely back to the camp. Doing this is a difficult process as you also must also avoid being shot at by fighter jets and other enemy aircraft.

And while you are on the ground rescuing these hostages, a tank will appear and will do its best to bomb you and the hostages. To makes matters worse, the tank will not follow you but will hang around the prison until it makes sure that every hostage is killed. When you decide to bomb the tank, you have to proceed with caution, knowing when you can do it. You see, if you decide to bomb when the hostages are running around, you are likely to kill that hostage, so you need to make sure that there aren't any hostages around. (40 hostages must be transported back to camp to proceed to the next round.) I did not worry about this, since I did my best to rescue the most hostages that were inside a prison, knowing that if they die, then that's their fault.

The first versions of Choplifter were boring to play, the graphics were basically the same, as well as the gameplay. Sega managed to change all that when they decided to bring out their own version. Sega's version, by the way, is excellent. You see, this version consists of six rounds and features rich environments, such as the desert and sea. The animations are quite nice, especially the little bit of animation where your chopper is shot down and you parachute to the ground and burn up when you make contact.

The sound in the SMS version is also very good. There are three pieces of music in the game, but the last piece, that plays on rounds three and six, is worth listening to. The sound is greatly enhanced with the built-in FM chipset that comes with the second model of the SMS and is a big plus for all those who have managed to own this model.

The Bad
The game gets rather difficult as you proceed through the round.

The Bottom Line
The SMS version is excellent than its other counterparts. If you are disappointed that the original game was boring when you played it a few times, then I suggest having a go at the SMS version.

Rating: *

SEGA Master System · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2005

One of the best arcade games, but very demanding

The Good
While you must destroy and kill in self-defence, this game is about rescuing i.e saving lives and I think one feels more like a medic than an airforce pilot(your little pilot wears a red shirt, while the little POWs wear blue). It requires a lot of precision to control the chopper, dodge the enemy, land to take on passengers and avoid shooting POWs. Sega's arcade remake of Dan Gorlin's original has great haunting music giving the gameplay a sense of desperation (I'm not sure if the composer has been confirmed, but my guess is that it was Hiroshi Miyauchi-Kawaguchi for its resemblance to HangOn's music). I like the four stages i.e the scenes/backgrounds, first the desert, the ocean, then forest/cavern and finally the city with it's futuristic look.

The Bad
A lot of arcade games demand time, money and effort, just to past the first stage, but Choplifter is one of the most demanding. One thing I particularly didn't like was that when your chopper is shot down and lands on top of an anti-aircraft gun, the gun isn't destroyed, which I think is rather stingy of the developers. A more decent development team might have given the player a little consolation for being shot down.

The Bottom Line
A great game to watch and listen to, exciting to play, but draining. In the present day, there would be no shame in playing a home ported version and maybe using save states or altering the difficulty level.

Arcade · by Andrew Fisher (697) · 2018

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Choplifter appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Arcade version

After Choplifter! was released for the Apple II, it was not only ported to numerous other computer and console systems, but also converted by Sega into a coin-op arcade game. This makes Choplifter! one of the few 1980s games to start on a home system and later appear in arcades, instead of the other way around. According to Dan Gorlin he did not really have anything to do with this version as Sega created their own design and artwork for the game. He was nevertheless impressed with the result although would have preferred an analogue controller.

[Source: Retro Gamer Magazine, Load 51]

Cancelled PC version

Game creator Dan Gorlin began work on a PC version of Choplifter! during the 1990s, but says it was never completed due to "industry problems."

[Source: Retro Gamer Magazine, Load 51]

Development

Choplifter! began as a 3D game in early development, but was later converted into a 2D side-scroller when creator Dan Gorlin realized the limitations of contemporary hardware.

[Source: Retro Gamer Magazine, Load 51]

Influence

Game creator Dan Gorlin cites both the Iranian hostage crisis and the arcade game Defender as major influences on Choplifter!'s design.

[Source: Retro Gamer Magazine, Load 51]

Legacy

Choplifter designer Dan Gorlin on the surprising influence of his game on the industry:

A lot of professionals in the game business now tell me that Choplifter was big influence on them. It kinda freaks me out; like inventing dynamite or something.

(From the book *High Score!* by Rusel DeMaria and Johnny L. Wilson, p.125.)

Scenario

While they both spawned strings of sequels to lead series of their own, Choplifter and Lode Runner can be considered to share not just human sprite animation, but a "game world" along with Will Wright's Raid on Bungeling Bay, all three games (all published by Brøderbund) eventually featuring the militaristic denizens of the Bungeling Empire as the primary antagonists.

Information also contributed by Garcia and Pseudo_Intellectual

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by PCGamer77.

SG-1000 added by djindio. Arcade added by Michael Cassidy. Sharp X1, PC-6001 added by Infernos. Apple II added by KnockStump. Coleco Adam added by Hipolito Pichardo. Atari 5200, Atari 7800 added by RKL. Atari 8-bit added by Martin Smith. PC-88, FM-7 added by Terok Nor. Thomson TO, VIC-20 added by Игги Друге. MSX added by koffiepad.

Additional contributors: Freeman, formercontrib, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, 64er.

Game added January 8, 2003. Last modified March 8, 2024.