Super Cobra is the sequel to the succesful Scramble. You must guide your helicopter through ten different stages of enemy opposition and challenges to invade the enemy base and rescue the booty. Your helicopter is equipped with missiles and bombs which you must use to destroy the enemy missiles, tanks and other obstacles placed in your way. You have a limited fuel supply which is continually draining, and you must keep it topped up by shooting or bombing the fuel dumps. Contact with missiles, bombs, tanks and the landscape is fatal.

The ten stages of the game progress as follows:

Stage 1: The first stage is a simple flight across the mountains and through the caverns. Your only adversaries are enemy missiles which are launched from the ground and enemy tanks which sometimes fire a barrage of bullets at you.

Stage 2: Similar to stage one, except the missiles on the first level are replaced by smaller missiles which launch from the ground, but instead of only travelling straight up they arc either to the left or right.

Stage 3: The third stage has enemy ships which attack in formations of four grouped together, travelling from right to left. They home in on your position, but once they start moving, their final destination is set.

Stage 4: On this stage the enemy ships arrive singly, and move up and down in front of you on a fixed horizontal plane. You must either shoot them or dodge past them

Stage 5: This stage has bombs attached to the ceiling of the cavern which drop down when you are close. You must either shoot them or avoid them.

Stage 6: The static tanks in the previous levels now have the ability to move across the landscape, but only to the right. If there is a clear space to the right of a tank, it will set off across the screen, and stop when it reaches another tank or fuel dump, all the while firing a hail of bullets.

Stage 7: You must fly through a shower of comets, which are moving from right to left on a fixed vertical plane. Contact with them is fatal and there is also an extra rogue comet, which tracks your position on the vertical level.

Stage 8: Similar to stage four, but this time the enemy ships are replaced by more powerful UFO's which also have the ability to fire bullets at you.

Stage 9: This stage is the same as the second, but this time the ground missiles are a lot more numerous.

Stage 10: You must guide your helicopter through a maze of caverns and across city rooftops, with some very tight turns to negotiate, and some very strategically placed tanks and missiles hampering your progress.

Once you successfully pass the tenth stage, you move on to the enemy base stage. This is similar to the stage ten, but much shorter. Once you pass the last building you must drop down, and pick up the booty. Escape from this stage and you complete the level, and are awarded an extra life. The game then restarts at a faster pace with more missiles and smarter tanks to contend with, firing much more often.

An extra life is awarded for 10,000 points.

Ensure you bomb tanks as early as possible, as this will make sure they are unable to fire at you as they will destroyed before you get close enough.

Destroy the first missile, fuel dump or tank lined in a row, and then you can drop down and fire a stream of bullets at the remaining enemies.

On the second stage, watch out for missiles being fired from behind you, as these have the habit of landing on you when you least expect it.

On stage three stay as low as you safely can, and when the enemy ships are not moving, fire bullets as quickly as possible and you should be able to take out all four before they start moving towards you. If they do move towards you, move away as they will be homed in on your previous position.

On stage four, a constant stream of bullets should be enough to see off any enemy ships before they get too close.

Missiles located on the ceiling can be shot before they fall, or they can be avoided when they drop. If you stay back, you can then move forwards to get past them when they are falling.

Staying as far forward as you can enables you to negotiate some very tight spots. This is absolutely necessary to get past some of the very tight turns on stage ten. You must be locked to the right and then move back and up/down at the same time in order to get past some of the corners on this stage.

Moving tanks are best destroyed before they move off or, if they are moving, stay behind and above them and fire bullets as they climb the terrain. Use bombs before every valley to take out any tanks sitting at the bottom lying in wait for you.

The comets are easiest avoided by staying low and concentrating your bullets on the homing one. All the while, remember to keep bombing to take out the required fuel and tanks for extra points.