Hey there. Who wants to go for a ride on a helicopter? You'll get to do just that and more in this remake of an Apple II classic. Choplifter HD plays very much like an old school game. Easy peasy in the beginning and insane hard in the later stages. Mix in some chopper upgrades and some pretty visuals and you have a nostalgic experience. Let's take a look at what went down with this game.
The levels are pretty straight forward. The chopper flies horizontally, left to right, and you land and lift off. You have a linear map on the top right where mission objectives are highlighted. So simple yet extremely effective. There are people roaming the floors and some on rooftops and you'll run into an occasional turret that you need to take out. Those are easy to spot since they're highlighted red and say 'target' over them. Check points, whether they are drop off or pick up points are marked green so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding fuel spots and rescue points. The people are pretty hard to see and if you're not careful, you'll end smashing with your chopper instead of rescuing them.The controls are a little sloppy. The first 4 missions are training missions and they are there so that you can familiarize yourself with the movement of the chopper. It also introduces you to the shooting down of bad guys and that aiming system needs work. There is no auto lock on enemies so you basically have to shoot and feel your way to an enemy. Which sucks because you can very easily blast the people you were there to save. The chopper does have the ability to rotate so it add a hint of depth to the game and the speed boost feature is good for when u just want to avoid the chaos.You'll have to endure the easy stuff to get to the great stuff. The strength in this game comes in the mission objectives. While the standard rescuing people is ok, a chopper with guns in meant for action! As you complete missions, you'll have the ability to upgrade your chopper. And once you have a kick ass chopper, you'll stand a chance against some of the harder mission. Some mission objectives will have you defending a base, others will have a more 'seek and destroy' feel, and yet others will pit you against the clock to make sure the injured that you rescued don't die on the way to safety. And this is where it begins to feel like an old school NES game.Choplifter HD can be hard... As in insane hard. Jet fighters flies at out of nowhere, your chopper goes down at the first touch of enemy fire, and at the slightest mistake, you kill who you are rescuing. At one point I was so frustrated that I just said hell with it and ran over the injured just to release some steam. This is one of those games that will have you restarting missions because you'll refuse to go down in flames!Choplifter HD has that retro feel. Many gamers complain that games aren't what they used to be and Choplifter HD has that old school difficulty with pretty visuals. In the end, you're still just a pilot, picking up and dropping off people. But now, it's in glorious HD! Later!
The Official Verdict: A solid 3 stars out of 5
This review is based on an Xbox 3560 copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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