The creators of Luftrausers – Dutch two-man development studio Vlambeer – don’t ask to be taken too seriously, and you can tell by the names of the other games they’ve published. These include Ridiculous Fishing and Nuclear Throne, among others. Even the name “Vlambeer” itself, which means something like “flaming bear”, makes you wonder if it’s true what they say about Dutch smoking habits – and I don’t mean smoked gouda, either. If you visit the programmers’ website, you’ll find a game called Luftrauser, a flash game that appears to differ from the game we’re reviewing by nothing more than a single “s”. But this review will show that, aside from the basic premise and a similar name, the two games have nothing in common.
Luftrausers is a dog-fighting game. A small plane, called a “Rauser”, is launched from a warship and then has to defend itself against enemy forces, which are also planes, for the most part. But planes aren’t the only things the pilot has to worry about – the battle is soon joined by all kinds of ships too, from small gunboats to heavy battleships. The field of play is framed by the sky above and the water below, and enemies can attack from any direction. Your task: if it moves, shoot it out of the sky – “raus aus der Luft” , whence the faux-German title “Luftrausers”. However, there are some major differences between Luftrausers and a classic arcade game, as Vlambeer has adapted the game to fit modern design conventions.
In classic arcade games, designers always had to keep the controls simple, since they usually only had two buttons to work with. The developers of Luftrausers have done things a bit differently. The left analog stick is used to control the Rauser of course, though things are really simple – push up to accelerate, left and right to turn. The D-pad allows for some really elegant maneuvering – faster and more precise than the analog stick, but you can only use it to turn the Rauser left or right, not accelerate. So it takes a little bit of practice before you finally get the hang of it. Coordinating forward movement and direction with one hand is not so easy – the important thing, though, is to never take your other hand off the “fire” button!
Survive … but how?
The goal of the game is, on the one hand, to beat your own high score, and on the other, to climb up the world ranking charts. For each enemy you shoot down, you get a certain amount of points – less for small fighter planes and more for larger foes, such as battleships. The better-armored an enemy is and the more hits it takes to destroy it, the more points you get for taking it out. If you shoot down the next enemy within a certain (very short) time frame, a multiplier increases the amount of points you get. So if you really want a chance to see your score take off, you’re going to have to make sure to get the multiplier as high as possible; that is, kill as many enemies as you can in as short a time as possible.
And that’s where the problems start – enemies won’t just wait to get shot down, but relentlessly barrage the Rauser with a steady stream of firepower, constantly scoring hits of their own. This will weaken the Rauser’s hull, and after a few hits the plane will explode, ending the round. There’s no life bar or anything like that, either; the plane just starts to blink. The faster it blinks, the closer to the end you are, and at the time the only thing there is to do is flee. If you stop firing, the Rauser’s health will start to regenerate. But don’t wait too long to start shooting again, or the points multiplier will reset, and all that effort spent increasing it will have been for nothing (though you can always get it back to that point later, of course). This is the main thing that can keep you from getting a high score, so keep an eye on your health so that it doesn’t take as long to regenerate, which will give you enough to time to get back in the fight before the multiplier resets.
But there’s another mechanism that significantly affects your chances of surviving. Luftrausers keeps track of all the points you’ve ever earned, and unlocks upgrades when you reach certain milestones. The pilot can also level up, but this doesn’t have much of an effect on gameplay, as each round is as hard as any other. One thing that really makes a difference, though, are the upgrades, which can improve the plane in three different categories: weapons, body, and engine. There are tons of combinations possible, but remember that each one does have both a positive and a negative effect. For example, if you swap out your classic aircraft guns for a laser beam, the laser beam is definitely more powerful, but the Rauser will also be harder to maneuver.
Modify your Rauser’s body, and this will usually affect its durability, i.e. your hit points. With a thicker hull, you can stay in one place longer, allowing you to spend more time firing at larger targets like battleships; however, this will slow you down considerably. The last thing you can change is the engine, which primarily affects your speed, but can also offer certain special features, like a rear-facing gun or protection against water damage. All in all, there are 125 different configurations you can achieve by combining upgrades in the three categories.
If you really want to get the highest score you possibly can, then you’re going to try out a loooooot of different weapons, bodies, and engines, since the negative effects mean you’re going to have to test a lot of combinations in order to find out which configuration works best for your Rauser, balancing firepower, defense, and maneuverability.
Retro?
Seeing Luftrausers for the first time, you may wonder if it’s a “retro” game. From the screenshots, you can see that the graphics at the beginning are dominated by a sort of sepia-tone color scheme. The maritime hues that would be fitting in such a scenario are nowhere to be seen. In the course of the game, you can unlock more color schemes, but “retro” probably is the most accurate way to describe the game’s overall graphics. Is this a negative for Luftrausers, or is it a welcome throwback to classic arcade games? That’s up to each player to decide. Everything you need for a classic dog fight on the PS3 is there, though. The animation in the game is very good; for example, collision detection is accurate down to the last pixel.
One consequence of the graphics is that they don’t really offer much in the way of variety. Each mission has the same plane and ship models, and there’s not all that many of them, either. But testing the game, that didn’t seem so important, as I was much too busy not dying, and in that situation it’s really of minor concern how diverse the enemy is or how nice he looks. Of course the visuals give the game a certain unique character, which really contributes to the overall picture.
The game’s sound quality is similar. Players are probably likely to turn off the music in Luftrausers anyway, because they’re going to be restarting the game dozens of times, hearing the same melody over and over. There is a nice little touch though – if you upgrade your Rauser, you’ll immediately hear a slight change in the music, which will accompany you through the levels.
I should also mention that the package also include the PS Vita version.
Good