iPhone App: Chopper

January 6th, 2009

= 4 stars

In the war game Chopper, use your iPhone to pilot a military helicopter, armed with bombs and a machine gun, to save civilians and kill enemies.

The Good

• An update of the classic, fun computer game (that I was once obsessed with) Choplifter. Landing the chopper near a civilian invites them to climb aboard. Once loaded with passengers, you must return to the home landing pad to let them disembark.
• The iPhone’s tilt and multitouch controls are used to good effect. Tilt up and down to raise or lower altitude, and tilt left and right to fly in either direction. Touching the upper left or right corners drop a bomb or fire the machine guns respectively.
• The levels steadily increase in difficulty until you’re fighting armed soldiers and tanks hidden amid buildings.
• There are several levels of difficulty, including “pacifist” which takes away your weapons, creating a totally different game.

The Bad

• Graphics are a tad amateurish, specifically when a person dies — they transition immediately to lying horizontal on the ground — unintentionally funny.

Conclusion

While the game itself is only slightly above average, as of this writing, Chopper is a whopping 80% off which puts it at the way-low price of 99 cents. That’s an extremely fair price for a fun game.

iTunes App Store Link: