The Commodore 64 version of Choplifter was ported by Dane Bigham and first published by Brøderbund in 1983. While the game is definitely smoother and more playable than the earlier Apple II and Atari 8-bit versions, it’s still not without its problems.

The biggest issue I have with the game are enemy jets, and the annoying homing satellite, both appearing from out of nowhere, giving you next to no chance to take evasive action. Which reduces the game to a stop/start affair, because you’re not really allowed to travel at full speed for very long.

Admittedly, it’s not quite as bad as in the Atari 8-bit version, but the C64 version of Choplifter I think still falls far short of its potential.

That said: a 30th anniversary enhanced hack version, by Holy Moses, was released in 2021, which is slightly more playable than the original C64 Choplifter. Or at least it seems that way to me. I could be wrong. What do you think?

More: Choplifter on Wikipedia
More: Choplifter on CSDb