LGR - Paratrooper - PC Booter Game Review

A 100% timeless classic. Paratrooper is pure arcade fun that always entertains and, like any great arcade game, infuriates. Shoot stuff, shoot more stuff, and shoot some more.
Paratrooper for IBM PCs and MS-DOS compatibles

[@dejavuman22]

I remember playing this on my Dad's Windows 3.1 So much fun, so many good memories.

[@poochyenajones1362]

Literaly the first EVER game I played.

[@YaroslavGashic]

the same!

[@H76Pro]

Me too!

[@plasticboy8786]

Same here ^^

[@Heffsta02]

I thinks it's either this or space invaders for me

[@marcelbr815]

Here too

[@Tatarus31]

It was our favorite game back in early 90s. My friend achieved a record score of around 3200 points. Mine was around 2000. It took a lot of training ) We used a keyboard, even today I can't imagine a joystick that can provide the level of accuracy and control needed in this particular game. And the skills are still with me, it's like riding a bike. One bullet per chopper. 2-3 to shoot a bomb. Also, we witnessed some unexpected things happen when you manage to survive for a long time, like the fourth paratrooper coming on foot from the side and then they destroy you. Once I somehow managed to drop a paratrooper on top of the one already on the ground AFTER they began moving towards the gun, leaving the human pyramid unfinished, and was able to play further. Overall, It's not such a plain game as it appears )

[@OmegaEnvych]

This was the FIRST computer game in my gaming history. The very first. Still remember it. I was like 4 years old.

[@nme232]

This has taken me back to the 90s

[@johnlifer6501]

FcUK FCUK!!! FINALLY I FOUND THE GAME I WAS LOOKING FOR, THANK YOU LGR!!!

[@darthmanzus7671]

So great you reviewed this game. I remember playing this on my 33 MHz gaming rig when i was like 6 =D Awesome memories.

[@E5rael]

Something sounds kinda off in 33 MHz "gaming rig". xD I think the term didn't really exist yet back then, when most households had that one family computer that mom and dad also used for work. There really weren't that many PCs purpose built for gaming. Perhaps you come from a better off family that could afford a separate gaming rig? :)

[@hammoudi]

gotta say though I always used a keyboard with this game, was no problem :-)

[@Yungbeck]

Oh my god. This is what my granddad had at his place. Now I remember

[@Gilmaris]

I had this game back in the day. Didn't have a joystick, didn't have a mouse. I got pretty good at it, didn't feel all that handicapped without a joystick.

[@idjano346]

the song's beginnig is so cool, good remembers ...

[@SE45CX]

Yeah, the instant shift to your carefree childhood viewpoint.

[@victorpang9362]

Had an IBM XT 8086 and played this game, together with Spacestrike, Buck Rogers and Tapper. Brings back memories!

[@H76Pro]

The first PC I ever played and also Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0

[@BigHairyMarty314]

Ah Paratrooper. One of the all time classics.

[@sanjayva]

awesome game - spent countless hours playing paratrooper. I got a joystick much later and almost always played this using the keyboard. this was way back when most computers came with 256K of RAM. :)

[@TheOnlyToblin]

One of the first games I had on my old 8088. It also had that awesome, huge, red flipswitch on the side. Ah, nostalgia!

[@captaincorleone7088]

The Apple MS-DOS Compatible 486 Macintosh video brought me here. :)

[@zzy09azy]

This was one of the early games that would run on the IBM PC and compatibles. It was written by a cousin of mine who was a teenager at the time. He went on to become a college professor.

[@michaelfernstrom7694]

Holy shit, this was actually the first game I ever played. My dad got me my first own IBM 286 with a joystick when I was like 2-3 years old. I can still remember how happy I was the first time we booted it up. Such nostalgia.

[@daniel_007]

Was one of the first pc games I ever played! Found that one on a shareware CD rom! Was such a satisfaction to transfer the file into a floppy disk and play that in my 386!

[@rijden-nu]

I was soooo good at this back then... Always played with the keyboard. Pretty much 99% of my shots were 1-shot kills exactly straight. Think I got up to 3000 points, maybe more. The jets start dropping dual and triple bombs!

[@rijden-nu]

Oh yeah, and you can also first shoot the parachutes and then shoot their falling bodies. Decades later, in Just Cause II, this would become known as the "juggle kill".

[@evewin89]

I STARTED MY GAMING ADDICTION IN THIS CLASSIC GAME IN MY NEIGHBOR'S HOME COMPUTER , USED TO CALL THIS AS A PARACHUTE GAME :)

[@PetCemetaryDude]

Brings back memories. Great review!

[@TheFunClub1]

I remember I played this game in 1999 on my 1st computer which comes with MS-DOS.

[@Hexumonium]

Oh man I loved that game. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[@5dstrix]

THIS IS ONE OF THE FIRST GAMES I EVER PLAYED AT 4 YEARS OLD, ON MY 8086, I LOVE YOUR CHANNEL!

[@5dstrix]

THAT SONG... AAHHH XD WARM AND FUZZIES!

[@help4343]

"As far as most people are considered Paratrooper is the original and the best" Most people? I would guess more people are more familiar with Missile Command, which originally came out in 1980.

[@XeCuTioNR]

That classic Springy-coil sounding IBM keyboard...takes me back to elementary school along with the classic Apple IIe

[@TheLambdaTeam]

The game's intro song is "Right in the Night" from Jam&Spoon?

[@demolitionboyaayu9999]

That music creeps me out when I was a kid.

[@MUMSUniverse]

Yesterday's Twitter post brought me here. Thank you social media.

[@KaySaschnitt]

Man, let me tell you something. I'm in italy right now, working my ass of as a reporter at the EICMA Motobike Fair in Mailand. I'm really stressed to the max every evening, and your video really eased the pain for me. Now I can maybe have a refreshing night. keep up the good work, mate! btw: Ever heard of Ecstatica I and II ? In my opinion one of the scariest games till today! ;)

[@PILMAN]

this was one of the first games I ever played

[@Canonicisme]

The music is from some famous group of the '70s, but i don't remember which one

[@jasonz7788]

Great work Sir thank you

[@WickedMuis]

Oh I used to play this one countless times!

[@niceandgames]

Nothing like a good ol' "shoot til die" game! That move where you dropped one paratrooper onto another...very sweet. I like seeing these old PC games, I was on Atari back then, so these games with their CGA look really look unusual to me. High res with few colors. :) And I thought the gun turret looked like a building that houses a powerful super duck which uses it's movable howitzer beak to blast incoming forces.

[@hupje]

a great game, it brings me back to the mid eighties.

[@nuzhatmaliat9258]

My father was looking for this game after playing House of the Dead 2 recently. He got into a whole nostalgia trip.

[@marilynwhitaker6086]

I remember that game. I used to play it.

[@ghos7bear]

Awesome game, loved it as a kid at father's computer!

[@godgamesglyphs]

WOW! Great memories! THanks!

[@alexandergabis6879]

Copter and bomber runs alternate, each copter run getting lower, and bomber runs increasing their bombs: 1 bomb on runs 1 to 3, 2 simultaneous bombs on 4th and 5th run, then 3 on the 6th. Many yrs back I tried hard to "win" the game; that is, to last until the copters couldn't go any lower. I didn't succeed, but kept track of my scores. My highest score was 2546, achieved by lasting until the 7th copter run. Also had scores of 2476 at 6th copter run, and 1935 at 5th bomber run. I played strictly with a keyboard -- no joystick. Don't remember the computer -- probably a 286 or 386 PC. Anyone know how or whether the game can be "won", and what happens at the end?

[@didma]

ahh man ur intro is so fuckin epic. one of the best here on youtube.

[@monkeywithocd]

Finally got a joystick for my old rig (the Top Gun Thrustmaster) and was looking forward to playing this... but this game doesn't seem to calibrate the joystick so the gun just keeps going right all the time unless I hold it a bit to the left. Is there any way to force this to calibrate? Same thing happens when using an XBox controller through DOSBox. Is there any way to force this to calibrate?

[@ahmedjameel1226]

Old is gold

[@JLE8811]

omg! the memory overload!

[@davidedipinto5835]

My first game EVER.

[@Heffsta02]

my dad got this for me. WOO HOO. love it.

[@sebamkfan]

awesome!

[@Robloxian182]

more retro pc game reviews!!! :D

[@DirtyKameSennin]

once I had a game called Niteraid, pretty similiar.

[@jebprendergast101]

Still whistle that opening theme.

[@KaySaschnitt]

@phreakindee it is, it really is! especially from a technical view (excuse my english, I'm from germany...). Instead of normal polygon graphics, they used elipsoids for just everything in game. Using this technology it really looked over the top back in the days and still has a very special look to this day. I really enjoyed the first game and recently bought the second game in a very mint condition, but it only runs without music on my machine, which destroys the great atmosphere :(

[@bitwize]

I don't remember Sabotage having those sweet particle effects. Go PC!

[@LordEizen]

im looking 4 an old pc game i think it was called 'AR' or that was the initials of the actual title but i think the application was AR.exe xD the game was like this: they give you a mission you are 1 soldier they show you the map and you can choose where to drop with your parachute,then you would have to go up on the map killing people the enemy you could dress up like the enemy to blend in and at the end you had to light a flare so the helicopter could pick you up after the mission was complete

[@vijnananath]

What's the name of that game in the intro? I had it when I was in middle school and have been trying to remember the name of it for years!

[@mrbigmouth502]

I remember getting this from an abandonware site many years back. Fun game, especially for the time, but Sabotage on the Apple II is better because it allows you to fire shots that drop towards the ground, which is really useful for taking down paratroopers. It doesn't have the cool tune at the beginning though. Many older iPods had a clone of this as well, and I remember playing it a bit on mine, though it had speed issues and the controls weren't the most accurate.

[@captainexcabier]

Actually I believe Paratrooper is a clone of the Apple II game Sabotage and not the other way around.

[@TheRoyalpython1978]

I remember playing this on my granddads computer years ago and I used the keyboard and did really well plus I'm female and loved this game thanks for the memories

[@htraindogs]

Me too...loved it!

[@TheRoyalpython1978]

@@htraindogs brings back so many fun memories for me.

[@MrBarlenan]

Классная игра... С удовольствием играл в нее... В Советском Союзе были компьютеры...ха ха

[@Lachlant1984]

You say this game doesn't run at all well in the PC Junior, but how well does it run on your Tandy 1000? This reminds me of one of the games that comes on my mother's iPod Nano, I can't remember the name of the game, I think Paratrooper has more to it though.

[@linuxlove4004]

hey cool, hocus pocus. i love that game (in the intro)

[@tombert512]

This game I think would benefit so much with a paddle controller. Why the hell hasn't there been a popular one of those for the PC yet?

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

yes, even i have a Paratrooper on a pirate disk, not sure if its this version or another, but i got it along with some other games with my first IBM 486.

[@ST2008X]

I have sabotage for my Casio BE-300 Pocket organizer, and on my Microsoft Surface RT...the Surface RT is surprisingly good at Retro-style PC Games.....I am surprised that Sabotage is the original version of this game....It is still around today on the Surface RT...Maybe I should check the App Store for it?

[@Devilot91]

It reminds me of Night Raid on PC DOS

[@TTOTheTrueOne]

That game is extremely funny, on any system. I used to play (a clone ) on the C64.

[@romulus310]

@phreakindee Dear LGR, ive got a question regarding this game. Ive played it in dosbox but I couldnt use my keyboard to control the gun. do you know how this can be fixed?

[@taragwendolyn]

gods, that brings back memories.... and for some odd reason, reminds me of scorched earth... any chance of doing that one? :P

[@Kujar3Music]

You should be a youtube partner already! :)

[@AP-eb8hd]

Awesome game

[@zatheerak]

3:08 to the heart attack part I laughed so hard I farted

[@Hal566]

lol my school had this game in their 286 computer lab, along with alley cat and roger rabit never bothered with them myself really. I might add that the year was 1997/1999 and while they had a pentium lab too, always thought it was odd having the retro lab, since it was quite useless at the time. Going even further back at around 92/94 another school i went to had some old mac's which seemed even more useless at the time.

[@racegenious]

intro sounds like eddie van halen - nice!!!

[@maxproulx8235]

this game isn't so bad im impressed by the effect when something explodes

[@KoRnDuDe19886]

i really enjoyed the remake called "Night Raid"

[@didgerydoo]

Paratroopers´ intro sounds just like "Run to Me" by Double You

[@EzioAuditoreXIII]

I cant say Phreakindee without my head bobbing up and down. xD

[@billy20van]

I made a ms-dos boot disk and I just downloaded Paratrooper on it. Can someone tell me how I control it?(move the cannon and exit)

[@UberMan5000]

Heh, I think I heard you say "Oh no!" at around 4:01 when you missed that fourth paratrooper.

[@XuChunVideo]

I remember the sound was loud, and I was playing this game in a university computer room, everyone else want to kick me out

[@Highretrogamelord]

@phreakindee No problem, can happen ;) Commando also existed on the Atari 2600, so easy mistake, lol. If you make that on special, well, you could also do the other CK games on the special.

[@MoonLiteNite]

"by keypunch" lmao

[@smiauu]

first videogame ive ever seen or played

[@littleNorwegians]

I'm looking for a similar game to this. You controlled a sort of base and blew up planes and all that. And every level ends with a guy driving up to the base, knocking on the door and delivering pizza. Know this one?

[@ThalesAcm]

was looking for this too... and it's been 6 years from your comment but it's called "night raid" =]

[@Another_Look]

I searched for this so that I can try to recreate something similar on Scratch.

[@MarkHewertson]

i. like. this. game.

[@freakycrawler]

As I see at 0:11 in the video, you own Hocus Pocus. Will we ever see a review of that game?

[@drfistface]

Never used a controller. My high score was over 60,000 but that was about thirty years ago

[@fnjesusfreak]

Reminds me of Sabotage on the Apple ][. Also it looks like it's had the credits hacked.

[@sharpisharp]

i actually played this.

[@TheIdleCrow]

I played that on my old ibm clone till my dos floppy decided to die, and for some reason it would not load one of the new dos floppies I made....... was quite annoyed by that :(

[@upyoursize]

Phreak, excuse me if i'm wrong, but why didn't you have a 100th video special? This makes me pretty sad.

[@KaySaschnitt]

@phreakindee Dude, missing ecstatica really makes me sad! :P I somehow cant post the link here, but just search for ecstatica walktrough here. It hat 10 parts ;)

[@YamiHoOu]

OMG HOCUS POCUS !!!!! I WANT!!! >.

[@cyperyou]

i have this game on ipod

[@xDEARKUSx]

Hi-score 9 :)

[@AleK0451]

genré

[@LordEizen]

@LordEizen nevermind i found it! its called AIRBORN RANGER xD yay