[80s Games Review - 1982] Paratrooper - The game that feature Johann Sebastian Bach's music as it's intro.

zulman (56)in #gaming • 7 years ago

[DOS games with @zulman].

This is another review and my experience of playing old MS-DOS games. I will keep updating this kind of article about old games every day. Make sure to follow me at @zulman

Hello Steemians..., How are things going today?

Hello there everyone, welcome back to my Steemit blog where I am updating my article every day about Old MS-DOS games review. Here, I would not be just reviewing the game, but also try to experience how it feels to play the game. I am reviewing or playing these old games is in order to bring back or just remembering all of those sweet memories that I have in the old days. So, for those of you who never play the game that I reviewed in my article, do not worry, you still be able to play the game now, at the end of my article, i will give you the information on how you can install this game current PC or Mac, or if you do not want to do the hard work of installing this game, I also give you the link to play the game online. So, keep reading and if you want to experience the game head on, go to the end of this article to read how. Cheers....

Alright, let's start our old DOS game review.

PARATROOPER

For today's article, here in my Steemit blog, I would like to review or experience another old DOS game that belong to the genre of Shooter video games. The game that I am going to talk about is called PARATROOPER. This video game have a very interesting gameplay. Talking about the gameplay, this video game is not much different with another game that has similar genre with the same gameplay. This game could be said as the horizontally shooter game. The character that the player will control could not be moved, it sit at the bottom of the screen and then shoot all the enemies that fall from the sky, hence, the PARATROOPER. the paratrooper here are the enemies that the player need to eliminate. There are not a lot of feature available in this game, as you probably guess, this game was a very old game. So, there is not much talk about technology or the graphics. However, this game is still a very fun game to play.

For short, in term of the gameplay of this game, there are not much to it actually. the player of this only have one objective which is to eliminate all the paratroopers in order to prevent them from destroying the base. The base is where the player control the character and weapons use to kill them. the player not only can shoot those paratroopers that has jump from the plane. The plane that carries those paratroopers also could be destroyed. These paratroopers are not only come by plane but also with helicopter. So, make sure to destroy all the helicopter and planes in order to prevent the paratroopers go out and land in the base.

Alright, as always, before we are going to talk in details about Paratrooper video game, as usual I would like to make a quick reminder that although this game have a combat gameplay, this game is not violent at all. although the character that we destroy in the game is a person, there are no violent graphics showed such as blood or another violent things. So, this game could be played by a wider range of age. Another good thing is that, the gameplay of this game is very easy. It is very easy that the game only have 3 button to control. Even a kid will master this game easily for sure. So, to relax yourself, go ahead play this game and have fun. But, before that, let's take a look at the game development first.

Alright, Now, Let's start talking about this game. We will start about the history, development, gameplay, game modes and give my opinion on this game at the end of this article.

Now, let's begin by learning a bit about this video game development.

Paratrooper Video Game Development.

Paratrooper is a video game that was released by Orion Software. This video game belong the genre of Shooter video game. This game was developed by a single person, his name is Greg Kuperberg. He is alone developing this game and then ask the Orion Software to published it. This video game was released in a very old days. This video game belong to the 80s game. To be exact, Paratrooper video game was release in the year of 1982. It is a very old game isn't it? In term of originality, this video game was based on another video for it development. This video game was developed based on 1981 video game that create for Apple II computer entitled Sabotage. Sabotage video game was developed by Mark Allen.

This game has to wait for a very long time in order to get an update. In the year of 1992, Paratrooper video game was released again as a remake. When the remake was release, the game title changed into Night Raid at it was released for DOS platform. More recently, there are also a Windows remake version that was released by Foppygames with the title Manotrooper.

List below is the summary of the game development.

Developers : Greg Kuperberg
Publishers : Orion Software
Platform : DOS
Release : 1982
Genre : Shooter
Mode : Single Player

In term of the reception, PC Magazine gave a fair score for Paratrooper video game. They gave 10 points out of 18. They also has a say to this game which is here is what they say:

"a well-executed but unexceptional game which quickly loses its appeal after a dozen or so plays".

This video game also get a bad reputation from Softline readers, they say that this video game was the worst IBM program. Despite all of this critics, this video game is still a fun game to play.

Paratrooper Gameplay

In term of the gameplay, this video game is a very easy game to play. The player will control a gun turret that located at the bottom of the screen. With this turret gun, the player can swivel left and right and also the player can cover a large are of the screen as the bullet of the turret gun will go until the end of the screen. One thing that is unfortunate is that, the player cannot move this turret gun from it's base.

The main objective of this game is that, the player need to eliminate all the enemies with the turret guns. The enemies will come from the sky wether its by helicopter or a plane. The helicopter will fly across the screen from various height position. These helicopter will drop paratroopers. So, the player need to shoot all the helicopter, plane, and paratroopers that come from the sky in order to get the highest score. These Paratroopers will be disintegrated with a direct hit from the player turret gun, They parachute also can be shot, so that they will plummet to earth and will be splattering and dying, also killing any paratrooper that on the ground onto whom they fall.

There also some jets that will be fly on the screen, they will carry and drop bombs to destroy the player turret gun. Fortunately, this bombs and jet also can be shot down. The player will earn points when shooting the helicopter, paratroopers, jets, and bombs. This game is not about winning, the aim of the player is to get the highest score. the game will end when the player turret gun is destroyed by paratroopers that make it to the ground.

Alright, here is summary on how to control the game with keyboard.

Keyboard Control.

In term of control, there is not much control the player need to learn. There are only 3 control needed to play this game. The details is a shown in the table below.

Key	Function
Up Arrow	Fire
Left Arrow	Turn Left
Right Arrow	Turn Right
Space Bar	To chose keyboard at the start of the game

And here are some screenshots of the gameplay, you can see the image on how the games is look like.

Here are some screenshots of the game

The screenshots is taken from online play

Also check out the video below to see Paratrooper gameplay

My opinion about Paratrooper video games.

To be honest, I have never heard of this game before and never played. This is my first time playing this game. After spending some time playing Paratrooper, I could say that this game is one the game that can make ourself feel relax. The game is a very easy game to play. There are only 3 controls needed. No hard thinking required. So, for those of you who want to relax yourself with playing some old games, This game is one of the game that i recommended.

Alright, if you want to experience the game, let's take a look at how to set up the computer to play the game with DOSBox.

>> Setting Up your PC or Mac to play Paratrooper Video Game

>>Download Paratrooper

You can download the game from this link Download Paratrooper

The game that you download come with an archive, you need to extract it and then run it with DOSBox. You can find how to run the game inside DOSBox below.

>>Instruction to setup your computer to play Paratrooper

Before you can play the game, you need to install DOSBox. Then you will be able to play the game in DOSBox, Here are the step to do it.

Unpack paratrop.zip file.
Open DOSBox and mount to game folder (Check out the video at the bottom of the article to see how to do it)
Navigate paratrop folder games that you have downloaded and extracted.
Execute ptrooper.com to start the game.

If you do not know how to install DOSBox on your PC or Mac? Check out this video

Check out this video bellow about how to setup DOSBox on your computer.

>> Lazy to install DOSBox? Play it Online

If you found that installing the game is complicated or you just do not want to install DOSBox or maybe lazy to install another tools to your computer? The are a good news for you, as this is an old games, you can play the game online. There is no need any install required, just open the website and you are ready to go.

Here is the link to play Paratrooper video games online. Paratrooper Online