Call of Duty: Black Ops lets you take control.

One of the best levels in the Call of Duty series is 'Death From Above', a mission from Call of Duty 4 that has you ride in an AC130 Gunship and provide support. It's a level that's somewhat grounded in reality and provides a change of pace from all the running and gunning. 

The level 'Death From Above' gave you control over the guns but not over the gunship itself. While the player does have control over a snowmobile in Modern Warfare 2, there hasn't been a level in any of the games that have given us a great level of control over whatever vehicle we're using.

This is changing with Call of Duty: Black Ops. Treyarch's community manager Josh Olin recently told Game Informer about a level where the player will have far more control over a helicopter then in any previous game, and how they went about making the controls for the helicopter accessible for everyone.

“Traditionally, it has been on rails. And that’s been the number one philosophy with Black Ops, to provide unconventional stuff. Stuff people haven’t seen. … There have been other aircraft before, but it’s always been on a rail and you’re just gunning. So we’re like, ‘You know what? No more. We’re going to take that off the rails. You’re going to be able to fly this chopper."

“We went to the designers and said, ‘Look, it has to be a Call of Duty helicopter. We’re not making a flight sim. There are other games for that. What we want to do is have you start on the ground fighting on a normal Call of Duty level and then you hop in a chopper. You go above the canopy. And you discover a whole expansive world in front of you. And then the player shouldn’t have to think about the controller in their hand. That would take them out of the immersion."

“Part of what makes Call of Duty so great is the tight controls. People just, they get it. It’s kind of like walking. You don’t think about every step you’re taking. You just do it. When you’re playing Call of Duty, you don’t think about every button you’re pressing. You just do it. You learn it and it becomes second nature. If you were to jump in our chopper and had to go ‘Wait, what buttons do I press?’ We’ve un-immersed you and now you’re thinking ‘Oh yeah, I’m not in this world. I’m actually in front of my TV."

“We don’t want to do that, so when you get into our chopper you’re just going to get it. If you’re a Call of Duty player you’re going to be able to fly this helicopter. And that’s done by way of controlling the elevation for you. So your left thumbstick, just like when you’re on the ground, will move you forward and back and strafe you left and right in the chopper, and the right thumb stick will look around just like on the ground. The AI will fly the elevation of the helicopter for you and you don’t have to worry about that.”

While this is for a level in the campaign, I really hope it's something they add to the multiplayer side of the game. There was nothing more annoying in Modern Warfare 2 then having a Chopper Gunner and not being able to swing around to catch a bad guy who'd taken cover.

Being able to move around the map freely would make the game more exciting for the person in the gunship and for the person on the ground, even if it's only for thirty or forty seconds. I'm sure there's people that wouldn't want this though, newbs.