The Atari 7800 conversion of Choplifter was developed by Ibid, Inc. and first released by Atari Corporation in 1987, and while it does at first glance look better than all the other Atari ports of the game, it unfortunately plays pretty poorly.
Tag Archives: 8-bit
Choplifter, Sega Master System
The Master System version of Choplifter was developed and published by Sega in 1986, and it is closest to Sega‘s arcade version of the game. That said, it’s not as head-bangingly hard as the arcade version, but does have all the different stages, so could be argued is the best version of (the first) Choplifter around.
Choplifter, NES/Famicom
The NES/Famicom version of Choplifter was reprogrammed and published by Jaleco in 1986, although it was only ever officially released in Japan.
Choplifter, MSX
The MSX version of Choplifter was converted by Programmers-3, Inc. and initially published, as a ROM cartridge, by Sony in 1985.
Choplifter, Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 version of Choplifter – first published by Atari, Inc. in 1984 – is more or less identical to the Atari 8-bit version released for home computers. Which is a little disappointing, as you’d maybe hope that it’d be enhanced in some way.
Choplifter, Commodore 64
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.
Choplifter, VIC-20
The 1982 VIC-20 version of Dan Gorlin‘s Choplifter was coded by Tom Griner for Creative Software, and it has to be said that it is by far the worst version of Choplifter out there.
Choplifter, Atari 8-bit
The Atari 8-bit home computer version of Dan Gorlin‘s Choplifter was published by Brøderbund in 1982. It came out not long after the Apple II original.
Starglider, Apple II
The Apple II version of Argonaut Software‘s classic cockpit shooter, Starglider, was ported by Solid Image, the same developer who made the flawed C64 version. And – unsurprisingly – it retains all the flaws of the C64 version, and brings a few problems of its own to the party, just for good measure…
Starglider, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 version of Starglider was ported by Solid Image and published by Rainbird in 1986. Unfortunately, the developers didn’t manage to convert Starglider‘s unique control method over to the C64 – instead they chose to use a fixed aiming reticule in the centre of the screen, and this results in a rather degraded gameplay experience.