YouTube channel Slope’s Game Room, hosted by Daniel Ibbertson, recently published an original 26-minute retrospective on the Choplifter franchise, starting with Dan Gorlin’s 1982 original for the Apple II.
The video covers how Gorlin, then a music student, was inspired either consciously or subliminally by the pop culture (the arcade game Defender) and world events (the Iran hostage crisis) of his era. What’s not mentioned explicitly is that Choplifter, like Lode Runner, was one of the first games to be ported from the home computer to the arcade, instead of vice versa.
DJ Slope’s documentary then proceeds through the many games in the franchise, including notable sequels and ports. The series ends with Choplifter HD (2012), released for the Xbox 360 by inXile Entertainment, the studio founded by The Bard’s Tale creator Brian Fargo. (inXile became a Microsoft subsidiary in 2018.)
I bought Choplifter HD when it was released for the Xbox 360, and I remember it being as good as Slope says. Unfortunately, it has since been delisted and is no longer commercially available, which makes it hard for Apple II users to experience the series’ ultimate form!
Thanks to Slope for this fun look back at a series that began on the Apple II — and hat tip to Herbert Fung on Facebook for sharing this video!
For more on Choplifter, check out its recent source code disassembly.