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Chopper Command

1982 video game

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ475055
Source-derived summary

Chopper Command is a horizontally scrolling shooter video game released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in June 1982. It was written by Bob Whitehead. The player flies a helicopter left and right over a scrolling, wraparound landscape, shooting down enemy airplanes to protect a convoy of trucks below.

Gameplay

In Chopper Command, the player controls a military helicopter in a desert scenario protecting a convoy of trucks. The goal is to destroy all enemy fighter jets and helicopters that attack the player's helicopter and the friendly trucks traveling below, ending the current wave. The game ends when the player loses all of his or her lives or reaches 999,999 points. A radar, called a Long Range Scanner in the instruction manual, shows all enemies, including those not visible on the main screen, similar to Defender.

The player's helicopter is destroyed if it collides with an enemy aircraft or a truck (which destroys the truck as well) or is shot by an enemy. Each enemy bullet splits in two, one going up and one going down. Using the "A" difficulty level results in a slower player shot.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Chopper Command” as 1982 video game. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1982—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1982-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Chopper, Command and video can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 1982 video game. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q475055. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Chopper Command primary sources, Chopper Command archive and Chopper research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Chopper Command” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.