They might not be household names today, but once upon a time, the Choplifter and Paperboy brands attracted a lot of attention in the world of gaming.
Dan Gorlin's 1982 title Choplifter was one of the first scrolling shooters to pull together a movie-like story and solid objectives for the player to follow, and became such a commercial hit that Sega would license the property to produce a 1985 arcade game by the same name – a (then) rare instance of a home title being ported to coin-op when it was traditionally the other way around.
Atari's Paperboy was released in 1985 and became one of the hottest coin-ops of the decade, generating plenty of cash in arcades and being ported to pretty much every home system of the era. A sequel was released in 1991, but only for home systems.
What's striking about both of these games is that they appear to be frozen in time; while Choplifter got sequels on consoles such as the Game Boy, Game Gear and SNES – and an HD remaster in 2010 – it's curious that it hasn't been updated more convincingly for modern audiences.
Paperboy, too, would surely make for a great current-gen, open-world adventure; its only significant 'update' came in the form of the underwhelming 1999 title Paperboy 64, and the less said about that, the better.
Keen to ensure these two titles don't fade into obscurity, Slope's Game Room has produced a pair of documentaries that uncover their history and evolution. They're highly recommended if you want to brush up on your knowledge of these '80s classics.