A retro helicopter rescue game for PC

Chopper Rescue, on the Retro arcade shelf of Games by Zaweba, has you fly a rescue helicopter behind enemy lines, blast the huts open and bring the hostages home past tanks and jets. It's an original 8-bit style game, free and offline, with no adverts or account.

It mixes shooting with something gentler: the careful landings that bring people home.

Flying the chopper

Use the arrows or WASD to fly, and Up to take off. Space or Z fires. X turns the chopper to face the front, and in that position Space drops bombs instead of firing.

Getting used to the chopper takes a few minutes. Practise gentle movements near your base, where it's safe, before you head out, since landings need a light touch.

Freeing the hostages

Fly left from your base and shoot or bomb a hut open. The hostages come out. Then land gently beside them, not on them, and they climb aboard. You can carry 16 at most.

That landing is the delicate part. A careless landing on top of the hostages is the worst outcome, so come down slowly and a little to one side.

Bringing them home

Fly them back and land on the H pad at your base. Tanks and jets attack along the way, so you'll need to fight as well as fly. Landing at base mends the chopper, which is a good reason to drop off a load of hostages and repair before heading out again.

There are 40 hostages in all. Bring home at least half of them to complete the mission.

Planning a mission

Because you can carry 16 at most, you'll need several trips. Plan them. A full chopper is a precious cargo, so fly carefully on the way home, and deal with threats before you land.

Watch your damage. A chopper that's taken a few hits should head home to mend before it's lost with hostages on board.

Chopper Rescue rewards a calm pilot. The fights with tanks and jets are exciting, but the mission is won by the landings: gentle by the hostages, gentle on the H pad. Players who treat each trip as a small plan, out, open a hut, land, load, fly home, tend to bring far more people back than those who simply fly in shooting.

Keep count as you go, since you need at least half of the 40 home to complete the mission.

Starting a mission

Chopper Rescue is drawn in the style of a 64K home computer, with chunky sprites and bold colours. Find it on the Retro arcade shelf of Games by Zaweba, or press Ctrl+F and type chopper. The title card explains how to play, F1 explains it again, Esc pauses and F11 fills the screen. The game pauses itself if you switch windows.

Your best score and plays are kept on the game's tile, in a scores file on your own PC. There are no adverts and no accounts, and every rotor and explosion is drawn and synthesised in code. The retro shelf has 26 original games in all, and if you like a mission with a purpose, Paper Round is another 8-bit game where you have a job to do, this time delivering newspapers by bike.