the helicopter's "subtle flight control", and concluded that seeing the hostages' "hope and excitement, their faith in you" made the game "hard to play. It hurts to see one of those lively people killed". In 1983 its readers named Choplifter fourth on the magazine's Top Thirty list of Atari 8-bit programs by popularity. BYTE called Choplifter "great fun". Computer Gaming World, Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games, and The Commodore 64 Home Companion praised the graphics and animation, the latter stating that "the little captives running across the desert almost seem alive". The Apple II version of the game received a Certificate of Merit in the category of "Best Computer Audiovisual Effects" at the 4th annual Arkie Awards, and shortly afterward Billboard named it Computer Game of the Year. The Addison-Wesley Book of Atari Software 1984 gave the game an overall A+ rating, calling it "a masterpiece". The book concluded that "the concept, graphics, and animation make this a delightful game". Console XS magazine reviewed the Sega Master System version, giving it an 85% score. Computer and Video Games magazine reviewed the Master System version in 1989, giving it an 87% score. They also reviewed the ColecoVision and Atari 7800 versions, giving them 81% and 84% scores, respectively. Legacy Choplifter II, subtitled "Rescue Survive", was released for the Game Boy in 1991, then remade for both the Game Boy and Game Gear as Choplifter III in 1994. An unrelated Choplifter III was released for Super NES. In late 1997 it was reported that Gorlin and his development team, Ariok Entertainment, were working on a Choplifter game for IBM PC compatibles which would be in 3D and have multiplayer functionality. The game was never released. Sega released a pair of spiritual successors without the Choplifter brand: Air Rescue (1991) for the Sega System 32 arcade hardware is a first-person, pseudo-3D take on the concept. Air Rescue (1992) for Master System more closely resembles 2D Choplifter, but has stages that scroll in all directions. Programmer Will Botti cited Choplifter as a major inspiration for his 1996 game Black Dawn. In 2004, Xicat Interactive published ChopLifter: Crisis Shield only in Europe. inXile Entertainment released Choplifter HD for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Microsoft Windows on January 11, 2012, and Ouya in August 2013. References External links 1982 video games Apple II games Arcade video games Atari 5200 games Atari 7800 games Atari