The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 9 out of 10]

• Developer: Majic Jungle Software / [Product Page]
  
• Price: Free

I haven't featured a game on the PotW since July, so it seemed it was time ... last week, I heard about the iDevGames gaming contest (their site seems to be down right now). I visited the site and downloaded a bunch of the entries. While all of them are interesting and there are clearly some incredibly talented folks out there, I was most impressed by Chopper. Years ago, I was addicted to Choplifter on the Apple ][ (check out these screenshots ... amazing how far we've come! Note - those are C64 shots; can't find Apple ][ shots! ) ... and Chopper is a nicely updated version of this side-scrolling classic. Now taking advantage of OpenGL and photo-realistic scenery, the basic premise is the same as the original - rescue folks with your helicopter while avoiding bad guys. You have missles, bullets, and bombs (in limited numbers) with which to defend the copter. You land next to the folks that need rescuing, they climb in the chopper, and you ferry them out to safety.

Simple in principle, addicting in execution, Chopper is a perfect way to waste a few spare minutes ... and it runs in either a window or full-screen mode, and has some other nice touches -- note the way the menu background cycles from daylight to night time if you just leave it sitting there. Chopper is a fun and interesting diversion from the usual workload...