The Great Playthrough: Game 68 - Choplifter

Choplifter
Released on: Apple II, Atari 5200/7800, Colecovision, Commodore 64, MSX, NES, Master System and many more
Played on: Sega Master System
Release date: 1985

After my venture into popular modern gaming last blog, I'm back to some traditional retro goodness here, and I do believe this is the first Master System game I've reviewed...

*Checks back over the list*

Oops, I was wrong! I totally forgot about Castle of Illusion!

Anyway, it feels like ages since I've played on the Master System, so I was looking forward to this - although, it has to be said, I was unsure about Choplifter. I got it recently when I bought a few games from a flash sale the wonderful Vintage Gamer had on Facebook - and I bought five games from them - four of which I really wanted, but Choplifter was kind of an impulse buy.

I remember playing a version of this game many MANY years ago when I was young and we had a BBC Micro (back in the days when you could just rip off other games and no-one really cared) and I remember enjoying it then, but I've been disappointed before with 80s arcade games when I try them out in the modern day.

So I fired up the Master System, took the pad, pressed the start button and.... spent five minutes trying to figure out how to turn the helicopter around!

But once I'd figured that out, I set out on my mission to shoot down planes, collect stranded soliders and get them back to base. And after getting over the fact that the game is quite hard (which is the normal state of affairs with older arcade conversions) I really got into it, and enjoyed my time with it.

It does have it's negative points (just like any game) - the sound design is pretty non-existent and very repetitive, and while I do enjoy a challenge, the difficulty level did mean that I didn't even make it past the first stage. The graphics suffer occasionally from trying to fit too much on screen at once, although it is a remarkably good job - whoever programmed this conversion really knew what they were doing!

In regards to the difficulty level, although it was hard, the game never felt unfair. In comparison to games I've spoken about recently, it felt more like Ghouls'N'Ghosts than Super Star Wars - death was common, but never malicious or unavoidable. Instead, thanks to the good game design, I felt like I was getting somewhere slightly further or learning something new every time I tried the level.

And I know this is going to sound strange, but the thing that affected me most about the game, and really reeled me in, was this innocent little box in the top-right corner:

That's right, the box shows you how many men are DEAD - whether by your chopper being shot down, or by them being shelled while you were ferrying their friends back to base, or (and this is the embarassing part) by you accidentally LANDING THE CHOPPER ON THEM AND KILLING THEM!

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!

I may be mocking it slightly, but this ticking clock of death really made me worry about the people I was trying to save! And it kept me going back, over and over again.....

In short, it's a fun arcade game that will entertain you for a short time - is it a game designed for constant hours of play? No, but if you've got a spare half-hour, you could do a lot worse than to slot it into your system and enjoy the retro fun

Rating - 7.5/10
Time Played - 45 Minutes
Would I play it again? Definitely!