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After three decades and about a million different ports, the Apple II classic Choplifter has
finally gotten a sequel...and holy crap, was it worth the wait!
Get to the choppa, Undertoads! It’s Choplifter HD.
Released earlier this month to the PlayStation Network, Choplifter HD is, again, the somewhat
belated follow-up to the 1981 original Choplifter. Trying to resurrect these ancient franchises
with modern sequels is no easy task, as so many failed attempts have proven. But inExile
Entertainment is right on target in Choplifter HD.
Like the original, Choplifter HD is a side-scrolling game of aerial combat and rescue. Flying a
helicopter into dangerous war zones, your objective is generally to extract the survivors
and get the hell out of there. Of course, since you’re under heavy enemy fire, your
mounted machine gun might also come in handy. Not to mention your freaking missiles.
Each level has locations where prisoners are being held captive. So you fly to these encampments,
land the chopper, pick up your friends and fly back to your base. Your goal is to save
everyone as quickly as possible, but that’s easier said than done. The enemy is trying
to shoot you down, but you also have to consider your helicopter’s weight limit. That means
you’ll have to make multiple trips to get everyone back.
And that means you’ll have to prioritize.
Choplifter HD is kind of like a puzzle game, in a sense. Given your vehicle and the landscape,
you have to figure out the best way to complete your mission. Of course, pulling that off
is an exhilarating experience in vintage side-scrolling action. Snipers shoot at you from rooftops,
missiles buzz your propellors...all the while, your fuel is running low and one of your passengers
is injured and living on a timer.
There’s a lot of multitasking in Choplifter HD, and the game puts as much as it can possibly
stack on your plate. It gets surprisingly intense, and it’s really hard to put down.
Considering how simple the game is, you might expect it to get repetitive, but it never
really happens in Choplifter HD. As the missions progress, they continually add some new wrinkle
to the gameplay. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, you get some ridiculous new
enemy or ambush. The game always forces you to react, and so the gameplay never gets boring
or stale.
The fun of the action is complemented well by the game’s sense of humor. Your pilots
like to comment on enemy kills, offering some deadpan observance after you’ve blown someone
apart. Also suffice to say, you won’t just be shooting at soldiers in Choplifter HD.
The game never takes itself too seriously, and that makes it even better.
Choplifter HD is a retro throwback with a lot of character. It has all the dressings
of a modern game—with lots of choppers and DLC packs, one of which is free—but it also
resurrects that race-for-the-high-score intensity that was the cornerstone of the arcade golden
age. This game is just a blast to play, and even though it took thirty years to return
to the skies, Choplifter shows no signs of rust in Choplifter HD.