GameShark – Choplifter HD Review

GameShark – If the words “Airwolf” and “Blue Thunder” mean anything to you, chances are you’re old enough to remember Dan Gorlin’s Choplifter, one of the great early computer games of the ‘80s. I played it mostly on the Commodore 64, but it was also on pretty much every Reagan-era platform. The gameplay was sort of a take-off on that business in Defender where you pick up the little guys and cart them around. But in Choplifter, the goal was to fly a helicopter into hostile territory in order to rescue hostages while under fire and return them to a base location. It’s an interesting design because it’s not really a side-scrolling shooter as it appears and the high stakes pick-up-and-deliver mechanic creates a fun sense of tension and risk. There were also fun little details, like how you could accidentally land the chopper on top of the hostages while they were waving for you to land.