In the immortal Arnie-endorsed words of Major Alan ‘Dutch’ Schaefer: “Get to the choppa’!” Or, in this case, get to some games with kickass helicopter battles by letting your eyes travel down this very page. Be it taking out a Russian attack helicopter with a stealthy hero or destroying a whirlybird by damaging its rotor blades with bottles of hooch during a zombie apocalypse; the following fights with airborne a-holes are the definition of badass… eh, if someone’s recently rewritten the dictionary.
7. Grand Theft Auto 3
The kickass copter battle: Sending Catalina and her whirlybird to Hell courtesy of an RPG.
GTA 3’s mute hero Claude is literally a saint. Oh sure, he runs over elderly citizens by the dozen, introduces hookers’ skulls to the business end of a baseball bat every second night and probably litters the shit out of the streets of Liberty City with assorted used wrappers. More importantly, though, he also rids Rockstar’s Rotten Apple of a chopper-riding criminal more annoying than a combined Justin Bieber/Jar Jar Binks axis of evil.
Above: As we said, saint
Catalina is to absurdly irritating female game antagonists as Usain Bolt is to running a bit fast. Every single facet of her personality has been designed to make you want to punch lovable Pixar robots in the face. Her voice, her mannerisms… eh, the fact she shoots you at the beginning of the game. Just writing vaguely rambling words about her is making blood seep from our nose holes.
Above: Thankfully, nothing quells the rage like blowing her ride to the pits of video game Hades
Praise almighty OG Loc, then, that sweet justice (or more precisely, fiery death) is reigned upon her when our loveable mass murderer takes a rocket launcher to her copter during the final mission’s epic dam battle. Combining a frantic chase through the streets of Shoreside Vale, copious killin’and said helicopter-kiboshing, it’s an appropriately grand, bloody end to the PS2 masterpiece.
Above: Pursuing a fleeing psychopath definitely justifies a bit of hit-and-run, yeah?
6. Dead Rising 2
Down the years, games have imparted many valuable nuggets of information upon us. Thanks to GTA, we know we can drive into lampposts at high speeds and suffer nary a scrape. Pieces of raw steak meat are not only world class athletes, they also enjoy going steady with bits of bandage. And anyone who wears sunglasses is evil incarnate. In line with these vital pieces of knowledge, Dead Rising 2 also teaches us that helicopters can be downed by throwing assorted bottles of booze, traffic pylons and wooden chairs at them.
Above: Good to know
Of course, taking out a chopper armed with a big-ass gun using bits of garden furniture should hardly be a surprise in a game which lets you skewer the undead with a stuffed swordfish. The encounter with TK’s flying machine is also perhaps the only psycho battle that isn’t annoying enough to cause an immediate stroke. Alright, so it’s a bit on the clunky side. But the charm of seeing a Motocross champ hurl hooch at the blades of a copter to stop the evil plans of a reality TV host more than makes up for any shoddy collision detection.
So the moral of the story is this, kids. If you take nothing else away from Capcom’s undead ‘em up, just remember: heavily armed helicopters can be brought to their doom with bottles of alcohol…
