The Top 7… Games with badass helicopter fights

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

The kickass copter battle: Nate's amazing chase scene with a chopper in Nepal.

If anyone ever comes up to you and innocently remarks that Uncharted 2 is “kinda like an action movie”, you have our express permission to beat them into a coma with Hacksaw Jim Duggan-style 2x4s. Nate’s sequel isn’t like an action movie: it is an action movie… albeit one you control yourself over 14 thrilling hours.

No sequence better demonstrates Naughty Dog’s incredible, breathless pacing and scripting than the Desperate Times chapter set in Nepal. It all starts off innocently enough (well, aside from all the murdering). Drake cracks a view quips. He checks out Chloe’s ass every time she climbs a ladder. He stops to admire views like this…

Sadly, there’s little time to let Naughty Dog’s technical wizardry fully flood your eyeballs, because soon you’re being chased across rooftops by the helicopter from Hell. We really mean that, too. The bloody thing is insane. It fires indiscriminately, not caring if it hits its own troops. It fires rockets through windows to smoke you out. In the name of Sully’s dignified soup strainer; it even reduces an entire building to rubble with Drake still inside.

The chase simply never gives up over a breakneck ten minute spell. Every time you think you’ve lost the intrepid copter, it rears its propellers at our hero’s grizzled cheekbones in defiance. Until finally, there’s only one thing for it: payback.


Above:... and loads of cowering behind tiny brick walls

In the end, just like the huge metal bastard in Jason and the Argonauts, Drake’s flying nemesis is brought down by perseverance. Well that, and loads of grenade launcher fire.

If there’s a more exciting video game setpiece than Uncharted 2’s incredible chopper chase sequence, we’d like to see it, then fondle it tenderly in a dark alley. Now lets wash away that disturbing mental image by watching Nate’s badass helicopter battle in its full glory…

Jan 17, 2011

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David Meikleham
Google AMP Stories Editor

David has worked for Future under many guises, including for GamesRadar+ and the Official Xbox Magazine. He is currently the Google Stories Editor for GamesRadar and PC Gamer, which sees him making daily video Stories content for both websites. David also regularly writes features, guides, and reviews for both brands too.