Ask any gamer what their favorite franchise from the 1980’s is and they will probably not say Choplifter. It’s not that Choplifter is a bad series, but it’s forgettable, especially since it came during a time that many consider to be the golden age of games. So, creating an HD sequel to Choplifter doesn’t make a ton of sense from a business perspective.

However, with the recent surge of HD remakes, developers have begun to search through their back catalog of old franchises to make a quick buck.  With that, developer inXile was tasked with recreating this game for the 21st century. Is Choplifter HD helping the case for more remakes, or should this one not have taken off?

There will be no references to Arnold Schwarzenegger or get to the chopper jokes after the jump.

Choplifter HD is, as the title would suggest, an HD remake of the original Choplifter for the Apple II. In the original, players had to fly a helicopter through enemy territory to rescue hostages and then return them to the safety of a friendly base. As you played, you would also have to avoid enemies trying to kill you or the hostages onboard your helicopter.

Choplifter HD does try to remain true to these roots. For the most part, each mission will have you venturing into hostile territory to rescue hostages and you have to escort them to a friendly base. However, Choplifter HD make some changes to the formula to keep things interesting.   Before a mission, you can choose what helicopter you want to fly. Each of these has a different speed and armor rating, and some can hold more hostages. It allows for a little bit of variation on how to play a level, but not enough to make you want to come back unless you are dedicated to getting a better score.

Each mission puts you on a 2D, side-scrolling, horizontal field where you will need to kill certain enemies, rescue hostages or a combination of both. You have a limited supply of gas, so you need to be smart about whatever you are doing, or risk losing your mission. Mainly, you will want to avoid trying to go to too many different areas in any one run to avoid losing too much gas. Thankfully, you can refill back at your home base or at gas stations across the level.

You use the left analog stick to control the vertical and horizontal movement of your helicopter, while using the right stick to target enemies. You can shoot them with your machine gun (which can overheat) or the limited supply of rockets you have. Using the A button will speed up your chopper, but it will also use up more gas. Unfortunately, using the boost will generally make you run out of gas relatively fast meaning that unless the helicopter you choose has a high speed, levels can feel like they are going on forever.

That’s honestly about all that the game is. Each mission, in general, is a slight variation on that basic core and nothing else. While you will occasionally get a mission where you have to rescue people from zombies, or a mission where you will have a specific amount of time to rescue certain hostages, it’s basically the same mission type over and over. That isn’t always a bad thing, but it can feel extremely repetitive.

The HD upgrade is fairly obvious when you directly compare it with the Apple II version. Instead of the 8-bit graphics, the game is in full 3D. While there is an obvious graphical jump, the graphics of Choplifter HD are fairly bland, all things considered.

The game itself, however, is relatively fun and that saves it from being a complete wash. The act of flying your helicopter and mowing down waves of bad guys is still pretty entertaining, even if it’s only on the most basic of levels. The flying itself is precise enough that you can easily out maneuver enemies and unless you are trying to completely blow through a level, you won’t normally need to worry about running out of gas. While that does get rid of some of the challenge, it helps to streamline the process of rescuing hostages by allowing you to pick up as many hostages as your helicopter will allow in any one run. Konami made the right decision to add in voice acting, as well. The banter between the pilot, gunner and hostages can be really witty and charming in its own way.

That said, from a technical level, there are some problems which get really frustrating. The hostages seem to be dedicated to getting themselves killed. Sometimes they will run directly in front of your gun as you are firing on enemies and other times they will simply have no idea where they are going. They will run in front of your helicopter, then behind it, then all the way around it before they finally get in.

Worse yet is they can easily be killed by your helicopter either through sheer stupidity or through dumb luck. At times, they will seemingly get so excited about getting rescued that they will stand directly underneath your helicopter and inadvertently get crushed by you. If you try to move out of the way, they will move just to get right back underneath your helicopter. Other times, the game will have a simple glitch where they will jump into the helicopter blades themselves. Honestly, if you weren’t playing Choplifter, it would actually be hilarious, but sadly you need everyone to survive in order to get the best score.While these problems don’t happen often, they are extremely frustrating when they do, especially if you are trying to have all of the hostages survive in a level.

The scoring system also has its own set of problems. At the end of each level, your score is determined by how many enemies you kill, how long you take in a level, how many hostages you rescued and how many hostages died. Getting all five stars is necessary, as that helps you unlock better helicopters and new sets of levels. However, the scoring system is heavily weighted, so if you happen to do perfectly, save for having one hostage killed, or if you don’t kill enough enemies, you can lose two or even three stars. It can get frustrating, especially after you feel like you’ve done a lot of work.

Sadly, this game lacks anything more meaningful than a single player campaign that lasts a bit too long. While there are leaderboards, the lack of multiplayer seems a bit odd. Multiplayer could have added a lot more fun to this game, and it’s sad that it wasn’t added in some way.

Choplifter HD, at its heart, is being as true to its source material as possible. While it’s respectable in that regard, there are still a number of flaws that hold it back from being anything more than mediocre. It’s unfortunate, too, because this game seems to have everything that fans of Choplifter could want, but poor AI and sheer repetition keep Choplifter HD grounded.