Chopper is a great example of how to take a new control method and make the best of it. Accelerometer controls feel extremely natural for this game, and the whole scheme can be calibrated to suit your preferences. Gunning down rebels, airlifting civilians and dropping bombs all over the screen is very satisfying.

The game features 4 modes of difficulty - with a special 'Pacifist' mode which neuters your firepower. The harder levels see more obstacles and rebels on the screen - and things can get crazy fast. Mostly, you'll be hovering over a building, dropping a bomb and then skirting off whilst your enemies fire and reload. You must land to rescue civilians, there's no rope that you can throw down.

Environments are nicely presented, with a good few office buildings, skyscrapers and other structures to avoid - weather effects are present, you'll see rain and snow as well as glorious sunshine. Unfortunately, you will see only three types of interactive characters - civilians, tanks, and men with bazookas. All these are fixed in place, except civilians who will run to your chopper if it's near them.

The game is held together somewhat by a loose storyline, which is somewhat forgettable - it would have been good to have seen either a brief cutscene or even picture slides - these would be much better than some simple text. In the end, it doesn't really matter as the onscreen action is the same for every level - shoot, pick up guys, return to base - and therefore can get boring if played for any length of time. Sound effects aren't really that brilliant, we'd would have liked to have heard a variety of explosions and death cries, and strangely, there is no soundtrack to go along with Chopper - surely this shouldn't have been forgotten.

On the one hand, we love Chopper's fast pace and fluid motion controls - but even though the game has 80 levels, there's no real difference between them in terms of enemies and surroundings. We would prefer a more realistic battleground as well - how cool would it have been to see an enemy run behind a car for machine gun cover - and then have you swoop in behind him and drop a bomb on the car? Moving tanks would also have been a great addition, as well as other airborne units.

In all then, Chopper is not a must have game - but if you enjoy blasting foes with a good dose of lead and you have a good music collection to spin whilst you're doing it, pick it up. The game launched at £4.99, so £2.99 seems pretty fair for it now.

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Chopper 2, A

Review by Ben Briggs, July 29, 2010

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