- Heli Assault

Saint's Row 2 Guide - Activities

Heli Assault

In Heli Assault, you’re piloting an attack helicopter and must use it to defend your gang while they make stops in a van. Although the first level of this activity sets it up as a timed, objective-based activity, most of the levels have you flying overhead and defending the van from enemy vehicles.

The attack chopper is outfitted with a mini-gun and a homing missile launcher. Don’t even both with the mini-gun. You can lock onto targets by training the reticule on them until a green box appears. Keep the reticule around the green box until it turns red, at which point fire the missile with LT/L2 to send it after the target vehicle. The missiles are quite reliable, however a red target box does not ensure a hit. Misses usually only occur if the target follows the van under a bridge or overpass. The target lock should remain after a miss, so just fire another.

Gang vehicles appear on the GPS as red shapes: red upside-down triangles denote enemies below you (usually cars), red upward triangles denote enemies above (helicopters), and squares denote enemies at the same elevation (helicopters). You don’t want to be flying too high while following the van, because if you’re up too high up it can be hard to lock-on with the missile launcher and spot enemies.

Always take out enemy vehicles first, as they do the most damage to the van. Hit helicopters with a homing missile to bring them down when the streets are clear. Enemy helicopters—and even some gang members in the vehicles at street level—will occasionally target your craft with homing missiles of their own, so keep an eye out for projectiles headed your way.

You’ll need to frequently manipulate the camera with the Right Thumbstick for best results with the missile launcher. Targets behind the helicopter can be locked onto, so while the van is making a stop, hover over the area, look to your GPS for red blips, spin the camera around and lock onto the vehicles that roll up. You can quickly turn the helicopter left or right with LB/L1 and RB/R1.

As mentioned previously, for the first mission of this activity you must complete a few objectives before the time runs out. From the second level on, however, there is no time level, but you must defend the van until it makes the number of stops indicated in the top-left corner of the screen.  The van’s health bar must not be completely depleted, or else the level is failed.

At the end of the third level of both instances, the van breaks down at the second to last stop, so you’ll then have to lower the helicopter down so the Saints can grab hold of the skids. Once they are hanging from the helicopter, you must take them over to a marked location on the map, which is never too far from the breakdown site. You have to be careful not to fly too fast here, otherwise the Saints can lose their grip, forcing you to return to the ground to pick them up again. No enemies will attack while you do this, nor is there a time limit, so there’s no need to rush. Move at a speed just fast enough as to not tilt the helicopter’s nose forward and you should be fine.

There are two instances of Heli Assault: one is in the Barrio District (Encanto), and the other in the Trailer Park District (Elysian Fields). Complete all 12 levels of Heli Assault between the two locations to unlock the “HeliGood” achievement on the Xbox 360 version.

Barrio District (Encanto) Rewards:

Complete Level 3 - Bullet Damage Reduced by 5%.
Complete Level 6 - Bullet Damage Reduced by 15%.

Trailer Park District (Elysian Fields) Rewards:

Complete Level 3 - All Weapons Store 5% Discount.
Complete Level 6 - All Weapons Store 15% Discount.