"That game looks hard," I was told in a Steam message while I was reviewing this title. I hadn't realized Steam was showing what I was playing, but it was, and he watched the videos from the store page to make that determination. The thing that struck me at that moment is that I hadn't realized that I was playing a hard game. I was flying around like a badass, destroying my enemies, getting destroyed, and going right back to destroying my enemies.

LUFTRAUSERS is a difficult game, but it doesn't SEEM like it's difficult, and that's not something you find a lot these days.

Expansion Of A Theme

LUFTRAUSERS is a sequel of sorts to LUFTRAUSER, a Flash game from 2012 from Vlambeer. The new version, releasing simultaneously on five platforms, expands on the original while still maintaining the simplicity. You only have to move and shoot, but the experience goes a little bit deeper than that.

While this looks like a twin-stick shooter or a shmup, it isn't. Pressing up propels you forward, pressing right or left banks your plane in that direction. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, you can do some death-defying maneuvers. Your health is represented by a circle that encloses your plane, and you heal by not firing your weapon. It's a wonderful and intuitive way to represent your health without making you look to the corner of the screen.

Customize To Your Playstyle...Or Not

The main new mechanic that LUFTRAUSERS brings to the table is the customization of your aircraft. You can now choose an Weapon, Body, and Engine that change different characteristics of your plane. There are over 125 combinations in all, and each combination has its own name. You can have an Engine that shoots bullets out the rear to propel itself, while having a Body that takes no damage if it rams into enemies, and a Weapon that shoots a continuous laser beam if you wish. You unlock these parts as you go - you start off with the basic "Original" craft, but each part brings a new dimension of how to crush your enemies.

There are also over 100 "Missions", which are tied to each particular airplane part. They vary from "kill 250 enemies total" to "Kill 15 enemies without firing your weapon" and other challenges specific to that airplane part. These objectives encourage you to throw aside your go-to playstyle and try new combinations. Complete enough of these missions for a part, and you unlock "SFMT" mode, which is never described, but I'm assuming it's a colorful way to tell you that there are "so many things" on the screen.

Leveling up is cumulative across all your playthroughs, so if your enemies are better at slaying you than you are at slaying them, you will still be able to unlock everything and experience all that was intended, it will just take you a little bit longer.

Sights and Sounds of Mayhem

LUFTRAUSERS has a very stylized retro look, reminiscent of 80's arcade games like 1942. You're really just fighting silhouettes, but you won't care when there are many of those shadows on the screen all trying to kill you. Many people will have an issue with the extremely low resolution - it opens in a very small window in the center of your monitor. You can maximize it or go fullscreen to be able to see things. On the PC version, there was some layout issues on the leaderboard due to the low resolution, such as the 10th person's score would be over some UI buttons.

Other people might find that a relief, as you won't need a beefy PC to play.

The music is like the chiptune theme of the original, but eschewing the chip and using more authentic instruments. It is indeed dynamic, and I'm assuming it's based on what parts you have on your aircraft. If you go through the game folders on your hard drive, you will come across a series of Ogg Vorbis files. Each part (lead, drums, bass, etc) are separated out, and there are five variations of each part. When you start a game, it plays three of these files simultaneously to get the background music.

While that type of dynamic music isn't anything new, it's neat to go in and listen to the split out parts.

The downside is that there is only one tune, so you might get tired of hearing it over and over and over.

The Verdict

The only "complaint" I had with LUFTRAUSERS is a small oversight that I got over pretty quickly. Even though I was playing on PC, I was using an Xbox 360 Gamepad. This is supported out of the box, however none of the graphics on the screen correlated to my controller - they were all for the keyboard commands. After wondering what was wrong when it would tell me to press 'X' and nothing happening when I was pressing X, I realized that it wanted the keyboard letter X, which corresponded to the controller button A. This is most likely not an issue on the PS3/Vita versions.

Overall, this is a very fun diversion for short bursts of time. If your skill level is like mine, first off, I'm sorry, and second off, a game will last somewhere between 15-45 seconds for you on average. If you have five minutes to kill, you can try to knock out some missions, or select all random parts to see what you get, and then get back to what you were doing that's apparently more important than killing evil-doers. There isn't a story to speak of - although there are cutscenes that are about two seconds long (and that's a generous estimate) you really don't care why you're fighting.

All you care about is being a badass in the skies, and a badass you shall be.

Version Reviewed: PC
Acquisition Method: Steam key provided by publisher