Payback (Black Ops)

"We were all fucked and we knew it."

- Alex Mason

"Payback" is a single player level in Call of Duty: Black Ops set in Laos. In this mission, the player operates a Mi-24 Hind. Although the player has full control of horizontal movement, they cannot control vertical movement.

Overview
The level begins with Mason and Woods in wooden cages, half underwater. The Vietcong then takes them to a room in a cave with VC and a Soviet Interrogator, with a table in the center, to play Russian Roulette. Mason sits down with Bowman sitting opposite. The Soviet tells Bowman that he must play or die, to which he refuses and insults the Soviet, who kills Bowman by hitting him on the head with a pipe, followed by him saying "next". Bowman's body is dragged away, and the player sees Woods struggling as VC force him into Bowman's seat. Woods asks Mason what the plan is, while the VC Bookie is getting impatient. The bookie spins the gun which lands on Woods, who reluctantly pulls the trigger. The gun dry-fires, and the bookie passes it to Mason. Mason and Woods agree on a plan. He informs Woods of the position of the enemies behind him ("6 and 8'o'clock") and then kills the VC Bookie with the Python, taking the chance that the bullet was in the chamber to be fired. Mason grabs the bookie's loaded pistol and, while using the bookie as a human shield, takes out the rest of the VC, but not before the Russian escapes. Mason and Woods pursue him through the cave, fighting of Viet Cong, until they find him trying to escape through a hatch. They shoot him down, and climb up the hatch outside. As the Russian falls Woods says "For Bowman!" to which Mason replies "For Bowman"

The 2nd part of the mission begins just outside the cave. Mason and Woods find a Spetsnaz platoon guarding a Russian Mi-24A Hind in a jungle clearing. They ambush them, and board the Hind. Mason acts as pilot and gunner of the Hind as they proceed up the river valley, wreaking havoc on the Ho Chi Minh Trail below, destroying SAMs, an Mi-8 HIP, sampans, NVA PT boats, armored AAAs, ZPUs on wheels and emplacements, guard towers that fire RPGs, radar tower, bridges, oil pipelines, and finally 2 Soviet Hinds before landing somewhere not far from Kravchenko's compound. Mason and Woods then reach the compound, located inside a large cave and fight their way in.

Mason finds captured American soldiers and Reznov in holding cells. After releasing them they fight their way into the cave to reach Kravchenko. When Mason kicks open the door of Kravchenko's office he is ambushed by Kravchenko, who then beats Mason. Just when he is about to knock Mason out, Woods sneaks up behind and stabs Kravchenko in the back. Kravchenko retaliates by pulling the pins on his grenade belt to kill everyone in the room. Seconds before it detonates Woods shoves Kravchenko and throws himself and the Russian through the window, followed by a big explosion below. Reznov returns to Mason and they find the documents leading to Rebirth Island.

Trivia

 * While there were other levels planned for the player to control aircraft in the series, this is the first not scrapped.
 * This is the third time in Call of Duty series, the level begin with the player and his squad were captured. The first time was "Semper Fi" and the second time was "Their Land, Their Blood" in World at War, also made by Treyarch.
 * Also, the line "Motherfuckers... we're gonna make 'em pay." by Woods is similar to the line in the beginning of Semper Fi, where Sullivan and Roebuck say: "Fuckers!" and "We're gonna make them pay for what they've done."
 * This is the third time in the Call of Duty series that the player watches their companion's execution outside of battle. The first one was in "Semper Fi", the second in "Loose Ends" in MW2.
 * Woods swearing at the top of his voice while playing Russian Roulette is one of the few times, during gameplay, that the word "Fuck" is not censored in captions, some others are when Mason chokes Dragovich to death and the time in the level "Revelations" in which Mason says "I keep hearing, the fucking numbers!", although there are more.
 * The Russian roulette scene in this level seems to pay homage to a very similar scene from the movie "The Deer Hunter", in which two prisoners are forced by the Vietcong to play Russian roulette, even the conversation between them, and the loud scream before pulling the trigger are near identical. It is also very similar to a mission in Conflict: Vietnam where the characters are prisoners in a VC camp, two are in bamboo cages and two play Russian Roulette. The Major they were captured with pulls the trigger and shoots himself, the next characters to play are two of the player's squad of four. As in "The Deer Hunter" and "Payback" one uses the revolver to shoot a guard and the other uses a guard as a shield and uses his rifle.
 * When reaching the room before Kravchenko, shooting at him is useless, as he is behind bulletproof glass.
 * This level was presented at E3, but only the helicopter portion is shown. Even the text at the bottom left-hand corner that begins each level was shown at the part where Woods and Mason hijack the helicopter.
 * When Bowman is chucked to the side and Woods enters, Bowman's body disappears just as the camera is not focused on him.
 * On the E3 Demo, before entering the helicopter, the player was seen using a Commando. On the final version of the game the player uses any weapon they pick up on their way out of the VC prison. It is not possible to find a Commando in this level.
 * On the E3 Demo, the only weapons that can be found around the helicopter were SPAS-12s and AK-47s
 * If you listen closely, when Kravchenko is about to strike the windows with Woods, and kill them both, you can hear Woods swearing the word "Fuck" exactly like he does when being forced to play Russian Roulette at the beginning of the mission.
 * In the introduction cutscene, it show the interrogator talking with Mason about the Nova-6; however, the pictures in the introduction are photos of people infected with the smallpox.
 * In the introduction it can be seen that Nova-6 is made with: Neodymium, Rhenium and Sulfur.
 * The Olympia and Uzi are exclusive to this level of the campaign.
 * In the room with Steiner's location a picture can be found of Dragovich, Kravchenko, Steiner and Reznov. The side with Reznov on is cracked up the middle obviously showing that Kravchenko and Dragovich split from the Red Army.
 * There are several weapons caches hidden in the tunnels the player has to fight through.
 * As the player kills the VC Bookie, and grabs his pistol if you look over to the right before shooting the other VC you can see another Viet Cong with the cleaver stuck in his face, this is a direct result of Woods attacking him with it..
 * When using noclip at the part before you kill the men guarding the hind it is possible to go up behind one of the guards up the back and a message is displayed allowing you to melee. If you were to melee him it shows an incomplete animation of breaking his neck and discarding the body. This leads to the theory that you were originally meant to kill the guards stealthily.
 * This can be done without using noclip if the player hides near Woods behind the sandbags, and eventually Woods will start shooting a soldier in the head with no reaction from the soldier. Then the player can quickly sprint behind him and melee him. Though sometimes this may not work, as the soldier may just die instead of standing there un-reacting to the bullet fire.
 * It should also be noted that, on Wii, the player will go through the complete animation of stabbing the guard's neck. Mason, however, will not dispose of the body.
 * Woods and Mason seemed to have liked Bowman very much - when Bowman was killed, Mason screamed at the top of his lungs and swore to kill the Russian; when chasing him down, Woods yelled something along the lines of "That bastard's gonna die," and when they killed him finally, they both said, "For Bowman."
 * When Mason kills the VC Bookie, the blood and the bullet hole only appears on the soldier's shoulder. It is possible this is due to glitches.
 * In gameplay shown by Treyarch's Mark Lamia, the player will have a Commando when Woods tells them that he plans to take the Hind. In the proper level, the player may use any weapon in the cave. This suggests that the Hind section was originally planned to be the start of the mission, or that the player was originally not to be captured.
 * When chasing down the interrogator, one of the side tunnels lead to a stash of guns, which requires the player to crouch to get inside the "armory" of the level, inside, are several RPGs, AK-47 and a galil
 * If the player does not kill the Russian interrogator as he is trying to escape the tunnel, he will continue to struggle and pull at the door until he forces it open and runs out, however the interrogator will "teleport" back to the tunnel exit upon doing so, and stand there until the player or Woods shoots him.
 * When Reduced Content is turned on, Woods screaming of the word "Fuck"during the Russian roulette sequence will be replaced with a much less profane, "Damn!".
 * When Bowman is killed by the Russian, Mason takes on a heavy accent when he says "Bowman! BOWMAN! You fucking son of a bitch!" This is because of Sam Worthington's Australian accent.
 * The player can hear Mason scream in this level if he gets burned by the Flamethrower in the POW compound.
 * If you look into Kravchenko's office through the glass before going up the stairs, Kravchenko will be pacing and making signs at the character.
 * If the player were to use the flamethrower on the glass stated above, the flames will go through the glass.
 * When in Kravchenko's office, Mason appears to attempt to pick up a CZ75, but Kravchenko stomps on Mason's hand, though Mason was fully-capable of getting the CZ75 whilst Kravchenko was beating up Woods.
 * In the cutscene just before the start of the level an image of a smallpox victim is shown.
 * The Spetsnaz Operative interrogating Bowman is speaking in Russian. He is saying "Posledniĭ shans... Igraĭ...ili umiraĭ!", pronounced "pa-SLED-neey shans, eeg-RAYe, ee-lee-OO-me-raye". He is saying "Last chance...Play...or die."
 * The Spetsnaz guarding the Hind are talking about requiring minimum ten minutes to have something ready. Some of the Russian voices are in fact Ukrainian. This is not improbable, as the Ukraine was part of the USSR at the time.
 * When the VC Bookie yells in Vietnamese, he says "Bắn! Bắn! Bắn!" meaning "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!". The subtitles, however, misspell it as "Bac! Bac! Bac"'.
 * On the E3 demo, the helicopter windows weren't transparent.
 * Three of the main characters die in this mission; Bowman is killed by the Soviet interrogator, Kravchenko commits suicide with explosives and takes Woods with him.
 * After eliminating the Spetsnaz guarding the Hind, if the player hesitates to enter the helicopter when Woods urges him to do so, he will begin yelling at him to get in the helicopter, though Woods's mouth will not mouth the words.
 * After killing the VC Bookie, the player will then have a choice of either heading left or right. The left path contains two weapons stashes while the right path is the default route Woods will take.
 * When the player encounters the Anti-Aircraft bunker while piloting the Hind, it is possible to shoot down the missiles homing in on the Hind.
 * When the player takes control of the Hind, its external texture detail is extremely low. This could be to save memory, as the player wouldn't be able to see the Hind's external texture when piloting it during normal gameplay.
 * If you hold the L1 button while in the Hind, you can choose how many rockets will be fired at the same time. This also happensThird_person_Hind.png with the Grim Reaper (by pressing the L3 button while on ADS).
 * Rockets can also be reloaded manually by pressing the reload button.
 * Kravchenko and Woods jump through a window which could not be shot through during the mission. This scene may be witnessed falsely by Mason as it is not possible for them to jump through a bulletproof window.

E3 Demo
thumb|400px|left|E3 2010: Call of Duty Black Ops Press Conference Gameplay