Imagine, if you will, you're an American pilot in Pacific seas during World War II. Your objective is to simply destroy the planes belonging to your enemy, the Japanese, while simultaneously guarding bombers whose mission is to attack one of their aircraft carriers. You're doing fairly well until your wingman is flying upside down, shooting at your side's planes and screaming obscenities until they finally crash into a massive explosion of frothy water and bits of metal, leaving you to die and scream an equal amount of obscenities at them when you both reach the afterlife.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you: I am your wingman.

For years I have enjoyed playing flight simulators, whether it be the humble Microsoft Flight Simulator and its many sequels, or war games like Ace Combat that offer a variety of fun destroying multiple aircraft in blazing glory. The only problem I seem to have with these games is I fly a plane like a blind epileptic with narcolepsy. what?

Try as I might, I cannot seem to master the complex and almost magical intricacy of aviation, even in a bare-minimum, low-tech simulation. As fun as it is to fly, see the sky, swoop down, blow something up only to proceed to mow-down countless enemies out of the sky, I am usually the idiot being shot out of the sky; that is, if I'm not upside down, crashed into an allied-controlled base. It's incredibly frustrating to play, but I cannot seem to pull myself away from it. It's the fun sort of frustration; the same frustration that makes you continue to play Ninja Gaiden even though you have died nearly 100 times. It's the frustration that gets you through those tough moments and makes you want to go back and play it some more.

It is easy to say that I am a terrible pilot, but it's not quite as easy to say why I still enjoy games that I am terrible at. With the most recent release I can think of, Battlefield 1943, I am constantly yelled at by my teammates for crashing into their squad on the ground and ruining their chances for survival. Perhaps it's just best to say that I enjoy the rush of the game, the beautiful scenery (especially the ground, amirite?), the models of the planes, and the challenge to try and finally learn to fly a friggin' plane.

I have always been amazed with airplanes, as childish and lame as that sounds, and perhaps one of my hidden desires has been to fly a jet one day. Of course, because I cannot feasibly do that I turn to video games to fulfill that desire. It is here where I can try and try again, despite crashing 30 or 40 times in the same burn spot in that field. In real life I can't do that, I'd be deader than dead. So, despite the fact that I can't fly the planes, I still enjoy it because it reminds me of that childhood ambition.

Or maybe I'm just a sado-masochist with a grudge against my own sanity.