Choplifter

Choplifter is the helicopter rescue game: fly your chopper across the desert into enemy territory, land near the hostage barracks, pick up survivors, and carry them home - while jets strafe you, tanks shell you and the hostages themselves can be killed by your own mistakes. Dan Gorlin's 1982 Apple II original became Sega's 1985 arcade hit, and the coin-op is the fullest version of the idea.

What makes it endure is that the hostages are the game. Each chopper holds sixteen, they panic and scatter under fire, loading them takes precious seconds on the ground, and a careless pilot can squash the very people he is saving. The helicopter itself flies like one: you rotate through forward, vertical and (in the arcade version) a perspective shift into a pseudo-3D rear view when crossing the border, the genre's earliest 2D/3D perspective mix. Tanks require you to fly low and shoot level; jets require altitude dodges; the balance of speed versus safety in every trip home is a genuine dilemma, sixteen passengers at a time.

• ▸Hostages as the actual resource: collect, protect, deliver
• ▸The arcade version's 2D-to-3D perspective shift at the border
• ▸Tanks, jets and turrets each demanding different flight tactics
• ▸Your own rotors and bombs as real hazards to the survivors