A New Kind of Helicopter Game

I watched James Cameron's fantastic True Lies recently. Near the end, Arnold Schwarzeneggar hangs down off the skids of a helicopter as he chases a runaway limousine that's careening down the rails of a never-ending bridge and his wife happens to be a terrified passenger in the limo's backseat. The driver is a lead-footed corpse who just got shot to death, which is why the car is out of control. Arnold's job of course, and the helicopter pilot's, is to get close enough to the limo to pluck the damsel up out of the sunroof and bring her to safety.

Too often games put us into the shoes of Arnold, the trooper's shoes. We get to be a big bad machoman blowing away legions of criminals and mercenaries. Why can't we be that helicopter pilot for once? Flying games are fun. Everybody knows this. And I want a modern flying/driving game that has rescue rather than combat at its core. (Or if not purely rescue, than some other non-violent utilities.)

Choplifter did something along these lines. You swooped down to daringly rescue hostages and prisoners in the middle of a combat zone. I wanna do that, and also maneuver a helicopter over the sun-roof of an out-of-control limo. This mission is complete when your partner-- who is hanging upside down off the skids-- touches his hand to the distressed damsel's hand.

There's some other scenarios out there in the universe I'm pretty sure. Maybe for another mission you can maneuver the chopper into a good position for your door-gunner/sniper to take out some terrorists who have ensconced themselves in various urban high-rises, and who are being very wiley and evase. See how easy it is to resort to violence as a game point? Violence is so solid, and direct, and discrete, and full of accomplishment, and full of tension. The key idea here is that you play as the pilot, not as a shooter. Bonus brownies to a developer who pulls off a modern chopper-pilot game without any secondary violence.

For other scenarios you can try to pursue fugitives who are on foot or driving like mad. Maybe sometimes, or all the time, you have a giant retractable magnet mounted on the underside of your chopper, which you can use to pluck the perp's vehicle right off the pavement and deliver them to the sheriff.

Hell, Dead Rising was a brilliant action game that focussed on a photojournalist. If somebody can make that a great game, somebody can make a great helicopter game. You could even sometimes (or all the time), be a news chopper trying to swoop down on the next big scoop. You could be the coast guard, trying to lower a hook down to a bunch of poor unfortunate shipwrecked people who are about to be eaten by sharks, and....it's really windy, which makes it hard to stay stable. Maybe you are trying to get into position for some Coast Guard agents to fast-rope down onto several small agile pirate boats, as they try to speed across the open ocean and fire missiles at you. Or maybe sometimes you just need to try to keep a spotlight trained on a tricky moving target.

And throughout all this, we need helicopter piloting controls that are at least as satisfying and fantastic as in Grand Theft Auto IV, which really for all its successes and failings, had absolutely fantastic helicopter controls. I'm talking criminally-overlooked helicopter controls.

I want that.