Video summary

I Am Turning Myself Into a Video Game Plane

Main summary

Key takeaways

Gaming

Game storyline (what the video describes)

The speaker frames Ace Combat (and the fan/indie-style successor Project Wingman) as a recurring series of jet-centric military conflicts told mostly through the “pilot-as-vessel” perspective.

  • Recurring narrative structure: different campaigns (stealth, coups, escort quests, betrayals, boss fights) are presented through fighter-jet gameplay.
  • Protagonist theme: the player character is largely silent/anonymized, defined mostly by squadmates’ reactions—so the pilot feels less like an individual and more like an embodiment of “plane superiority.”
  • War cost vs. fantasy: the games balance surreal, almost mythic jet spectacle with occasional reminders of real-world harm and toll (e.g., rival aces’ crashes affecting bystanders).
  • Representative plot beats mentioned:
    • Ace Combat 4 (Mobius 1): a silent protagonist narrative framed by someone on the ground who witnesses a pilot shoot down another jet, leading to tragedy.
    • Ace Combat Zero: the final boss is the protagonist’s friend/wingman, with a restrictive damage condition (“only damaged from the front”) that forces a more “joust-like” duel.
    • Ace Combat 5: the last mission involves shooting down a satellite, followed by imagery of abandoned military infrastructure—an unusually “disarmament”-flavored ending.
    • Ace Combat 7: the speaker doesn’t recount a full plot arc, but emphasizes later-game escalation where certain maneuvers become required due to faster enemy reactions.

The video also briefly discusses the non-game short story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” / “Attack Helicopter” by Isabel Fall as a thematic parallel about gender, weaponization, and “fitting” oneself to a machine—mirroring the “human-machine integration” feeling the games provide.

Gameplay highlights (how it plays)

Core gameplay loop and immersion

  • The speaker emphasizes control abstraction as the core “magic” of flight games: pressing inputs becomes “thrust,” turning, and missile launches, even though the game translates everything through controls.
  • In Ace Combat 7, the standout is the need to think about movement mechanics:
    • constantly managing your position relative to the ground, your opponent, and enemy missiles.

Major challenge: the ground

  • Early in Ace Combat 7, the speaker is “taken down” more by crashing into terrain (forests, ocean, mountains) than by enemy weapons.
  • The key difficulty is that air freedom is “almost total,” except for one unbreakable rule:
    • ground collision
  • This forces spatial awareness and discipline.

Turning, momentum, and approach planning

Turning is portrayed as less forgiving than typical shooters because:

  • Momentum and turning radius are central, so overshooting targets is frequent early on.
  • Destroying ground targets requires pre-planning approach vectors (where you’ll be after turns, and at what angle/speed).

Cameras and targeting

  • The speaker spends much of their first dozen hours using third-person camera behind the plane to track:
    • orientation (sideways/upside down),
    • and terrain proximity.
  • A “most cinematic” camera angle is also described as useful:
    • target-locking to the center of the screen helps missile lock and improves understanding of relative motion.

High-G turn mechanic (“cheat code”)

  • The video highlights a maneuver:
    • High-G turn = hold acceleration and brake simultaneously, making the jet spin like an “office chair.”
  • Tradeoffs:
    • loses speed quickly and can cause stalls if mishandled.
  • Progression importance:
    • later in the game, high-G turns become necessary because enemies can reverse direction quickly.

Strategies / key tips discussed

  • Use camera discipline early: third-person view behind the plane helps learn orientation and reduce ground crashes.
  • Use target-lock camera for learning combat math: lock enemies to the screen center to better understand trajectories and missile lock timing.
  • Plan ground attacks by predicting motion: don’t rely on “snap turning” like standard shooters—forecast angle/speed and your eventual position.
  • Embrace turning mechanics as the real skill gate: momentum and turning radius are the primary challenge.
  • High-G turns strategically:
    • use them to avoid getting out-positioned by enemies that can reverse quickly,
    • but manage speed/stall risk.

HOTAS, VR, and “full-body” learning (gameplay expansion)

The speaker describes gradually transforming Ace Combat 7 and Project Wingman play into a more physical, simulation-adjacent routine.

VR gameplay changes (especially in Project Wingman)

  • Controls/objectives are described as similar between non-VR and VR, but the challenge changes:
    • in VR you must find enemies manually (no “button + tracking” substitute).
  • The speaker argues VR improves understanding of 3D space:
    • headset depth helps prediction of trajectories,
    • but VR can feel less “precise” than strict lock-on.

HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) workflow

  • The video outlines immersion through more direct control:
    • using a throttle + joystick rather than a normal controller.
  • Because Ace Combat 7 has “almost no accommodations” for HOTAS, setup is largely:
    • create a mapping via a config tool,
    • then repeatedly test/tweak until flying feels right.
  • After setup, the speaker describes a dedicated “flight cockpit” ritual:
    • headphones,
    • cockpit-only view as the main mode,
    • eventually chaining Ace Combat 7 + Project Wingman + HOTAS + VR.

Levels / “why it’s fun” direction at the end

Late in the video, the speaker tees up (without listing yet in this excerpt) that they’ll cover favorite levels on Nebula—positioning both Ace Combat and Project Wingman as having standout, interesting missions and encounters.

Gamers / sources featured at the end

No individual gamer names are explicitly listed in a separate “end card” within the provided subtitles. However, these sources/people are mentioned in the text:

  • Game Informer (as the publication that ran an Ace Combat 6 ad)
  • Jason Mantzoukas (mentioned in relation to How Did This Get Made discussing Fast and Furious)
  • Isabel Fall (author of “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” / republished as “Attack Helicopter”)
  • Clarkesworld magazine (where the story was originally published and later unpublished)
  • Liam Triforce (Nebula colleague mentioned for a related series)

Also mentioned (not as featured people at the end, but included as companies in the later discussion):

  • Boeing, Saab, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin

Original video