Three of the Free Continents are under the rule of the Evil Empire and to make matters worse the Empire is sending in tanks to slaughter the population. You are the remaining helicopter pilot of a squad sent in to help the population on this suicidal mission but you have vowed to fight on to free the Continents. Chopper Commander is a side view horizontal shooter where the screen scrolls to the left or right when you fly your copter and you must destroy the supply ships, destroy a Mothership before destroying the tank slaughtering the population over various levels. Each level is set on one Continent with each Continent having six people on it and you must destroy a quota of ships before facing the Mothership. As you fly and destroy, the population count will slowly go down and if it reaches zero then that Continent is lost. When the Mothership appears you must keep blasting it as it fires back at you and when destroyed it leaves behind an anti-tank weapon which then allows you to fly across the surface and destroy the tank. Once the level is successful you receive one person to add to the population number and you then go to the next Continent on the next level. You have an energy bar and if you touch an alien ship or are shot by the Mothership then you lose one life from three and it is game over when the lives are lost or all the Continents are lost.