By Jim Rossignol on March 29th, 2011 at 2:01 pm.
Choplifter was a side-scrolling shooter that features a helicopter. HD (pronounced “ccchhhuud”) is the modern remake of it. The helicopter can go up and down, and side to side, and shoot. It’s just like it was in the old days, only a bit prettier. You can see the truth of that statement in the trailer below. It’s even being developed by inXile Entertainment, whose Big Boy project is Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. However, it’s my contention that such a direct pun (“Choplifter”) is actually categorically wasted here. This should have been a game about stealing candy from a store using a remote-control helicopter, while the enraged store owner chases your miscreant contraption about with a baseball bat. That is my firm belief, and I will not move from it.
The game is out in the Autumn.
29/03/2011 at 14:07 Cinnamon says:
Surely it should be a stealth action game about a woman who steals frozen meat from supermarkets.
29/03/2011 at 15:21 AndrewC says:
A game about stealing hands with a machete.
29/03/2011 at 16:31 jonfitt says:
Perhaps that’s a sequel to the classic Jump For The Meat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLOlu-ZoseM#t=7m23s
29/03/2011 at 20:53 stahlwerk says:
Wow, it took me this long to “get” the punning in the title, and I played this on the C64, in glorious green-plasma monochrome…
…commence chapeaulifting!
29/03/2011 at 14:10 WJonathan says:
I have fond memories of Choplifter on the old Sega Master System.
29/03/2011 at 14:10 Vexing Vision says:
I played the C64 version, and it’s one of the games that taught me about timelimits, and how much I hate timelimits.
I am pleased to see there are no timelimits on that HUD. Yet.
I’m relaly looking forward to Hunted, and I suppose it’s nice to see a new studio to… uh… diversify?
29/03/2011 at 16:44 Hunam says:
Inxile have been around for like 9 years dude, they just don’t do alot :)
29/03/2011 at 14:13 KilgoreTrout_XL says:
This was my first cartridge for my Atari 2600!
I always accidentally landed on the hostages though.
29/03/2011 at 14:21 Tei says:
On the original, you quickly learn that the most effient way to save people is to burn his house, so is easier to collect then. :D
29/03/2011 at 14:26 Sunjammer says:
Wat. I played Choplifter 2 for the Game Boy only two days ago. This looks *worse*! :-(
29/03/2011 at 17:38 Wulf says:
Yeah. I do wonder what this phobia of colourful, and/or interesting/characterful graphics is about, where instead a large amount of developers would choose to drain every drop of character out of a game reboot so that there’s nothing left but a soulless husk. And I think that people are catching up to me in regards to being tired of soulless husks.
Reboot-making developers – there are plenty of remakes of old games out there, look them up, they’re often free and they do it right. Need a commercial example of a reboot doing it mostly right? Bionic Commando: Rearmed.
29/03/2011 at 14:31 RobF says:
Oh god, that’s hideous looking.
Although to be fair, after the beautiful Saucelifter, any Choplifter game has a long way to go.
29/03/2011 at 15:00 Harlander says:
Saucelifter was a delight, even if it was a little disappointingly not about stealing sauce.
I never managed quite to finish a level, despite coming close a few times.
29/03/2011 at 15:24 d32 says:
No it’s not!
And the Saucelifter is limited to the fantsy-pants electronics? :(
29/03/2011 at 15:52 Harlander says:
The Windows version:
http://www.allegro.cc/depot/Saucelifter
29/03/2011 at 21:03 DigitalSignalX says:
Reminds me of that game where you herd sheep with a UFO.. was brilliant. And better looking then this.
30/03/2011 at 05:21 RobF says:
Flock perchance?
I love the art on that, it’s lovely.
29/03/2011 at 14:32 Icarus says:
0:40 – Hell yes Wilhelm Scream.
29/03/2011 at 14:42 Creeping Death says:
“Computer! Game of the year!”
Fantastic…
29/03/2011 at 14:42 Bhazor says:
Never a big fan of Choplifter to be honest. A bit slow, a bit too repetitive, a bit too helicopterey
Now Defender on the otherhand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQnEfhUfBt0
29/03/2011 at 14:46 Navagon says:
What I want to know is why didn’t inXile turn their logo into a top down view of a helicopter? Clearly lacking in creative vision, that.
29/03/2011 at 17:40 Wulf says:
That would have been clever, yep.
29/03/2011 at 14:48 Hoaxfish says:
needs more wuckawuckawucka helicopter sounds
29/03/2011 at 15:38 terry says:
I always preferred Apocalypse – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg6zGUKkfBY
29/03/2011 at 15:48 Chunga says:
Choplifters of the world, unite!
29/03/2011 at 15:51 Benjamin L. says:
Nice little Fallout reference at the end of the video there, Mr. Fargo…
29/03/2011 at 16:01 jonfitt says:
So they’ve chosen a UH-60 Back Hawk. An interesting choice.
I guess there is a variant (MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator (DAP)) with rocket pods, but my main impression of the Black Hawk is that they are designed to “go down”. Perhaps you get multiple lives and the second chopper has to rescue the crew of the first chopper, which goes down and then needs to be rescued by the next chopper etc.
I think it is a statement on the futility of war.
29/03/2011 at 16:30 rivalin says:
“candy from a store”
Oh my, far, far too much time around Americans!
You mean sweets from a shop I take it?
29/03/2011 at 16:38 Navagon says:
It’s like that bloody Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film all over again.
29/03/2011 at 19:59 Baggypants says:
He clearly meant to write “stealing slabs of meat from a Butchers”
29/03/2011 at 16:42 Johnny Law says:
I don’t think that Choplifter really needed to be grimdark’d.
29/03/2011 at 16:50 RakeShark says:
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! AUUUUGH! Thank you!
29/03/2011 at 16:54 DrunkDog says:
I prefer ‘Fort Apocalpyse’. Now that Sir is a game worth remaking – or as I almost mistyped “ramking”.
29/03/2011 at 18:47 Rii says:
Perhaps on account of the dissonance between the classic arcade mechanics and “realistic” presentation, one thing that struck me whilst watching that video is the degree of cultural indoctrination required for the player to reject the classical themes of weak/good vs. strong/evil and rooting for the underdog in favour of empathising with the high-tech military machine cheerfully wreaking havoc over a squalid township.
29/03/2011 at 19:04 apa says:
They should do Vietnam DLC with Hueys, Jimi Hendrix and Doors!
30/03/2011 at 00:50 Thants says:
They killed Wilhelm!
30/03/2011 at 01:23 Damien Neil says:
I’m amazed at how much better Choplifter looked on the Apple II than in this remake.
Muddled, generic graphics with a busy screen that makes it difficult to pick out essential details like the location of the chopper and the refugees. The original has simple, clear graphics that readily identify the game elements.
30/03/2011 at 08:41 adonf says:
Rescue Raiders HD please
30/03/2011 at 17:43 ColOfNature says:
Walker HD. Now. Thanks.
03/06/2011 at 20:42 MythArcana says:
Console Choplifter for Mass Effect fans! The original was better…even in 4 bit graphics.