''Paratrooper'' is a 1982 video game written by Greg Kuperberg and published by Orion Software as a

self-booting disk A self-booting disk is a floppy disk for home or personal computers that loads directly into a standalone application when the system is turned on, bypassing the operating system. This was common, even standard, on some computers in the late 1970 ...

for

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones ...

s. It is based on a 1981

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

game called ''

Sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identiti ...

'' developed by Mark Allen.

Gameplay

The player controls a gun turret at the bottom of the screen. The turret can swivel to cover a large area of the screen, but cannot move from its base. Helicopters fly across the screen at varying heights, dropping paratroopers. The gun may fire multiple shots at once, and the shots may destroy helicopters or shoot paratroopers. Paratroopers may be disintegrated by a direct hit, or their parachutes may be shot, in which case they will plummet to earth (splattering and dying, killing any paratrooper onto whom they fall). Periodically, jets may fly by and drop bombs; the jets and bombs may be shot as well. The player earns points by shooting helicopters, paratroopers, jets, and bombs. Firing a shell costs the player one point, so if one is playing for score, there is an incentive to conserve ammo. The game ends when the player's turret is hit by a bomb, or when four paratroopers safely land on either the left or right of the turret (that is four on one side, not four total). Once this happens, they are able to build a

human pyramid A human pyramid is an acrobatic formation of three or more people in which two or more people support a tier of higher people, who in turn may support other, higher tiers of people. People above the bottom tier may kneel or stand on the shoulders ...

and climb up to the turret and blow it up. The game's intro music is an interpretation of a brief section of

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. Scho ...

, played through the

PC speaker A PC speaker is a loudspeaker built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven (dynamic) speaker. More recent computers use a tiny moving-iron or pie ...

Reception

'' PC Magazine'' gave ''Paratrooper'' 10 points out of 18. The magazine described it as "a well-executed but unexceptional game hichquickly loses its appeal after a dozen or so plays". In 1984 ''Softline'' readers named ''Paratrooper'' the worst IBM program of 1983.

Legacy

In 1992, Software Creations released a remake of the game called ''Night Raid'' for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

References

External links

* *{{Internet Archive game, msdos_Paratrooper_1982 1982 video games Fixed shooters Video game clones Video games scored by Bobby Prince Video games developed in the United States