There’s only a handful of games out there that manage to imbue me with the power of feeling like an utter badass and, after this year’s Gamescom I feel that I may well be adding another title to that legendary roster soon: Luftrausers. Created by the genius minds over at Vlambeer – who were behind the likes of Super Crate Box, Ridiculous Fishing, and the newly announced PS4 title Wasteland Kings - is just so mind-bogglingly addictive that you’ll have trouble realising how you got by without it.
Those may sound like strong words of endorsement, but since returning from Cologne I’ve been hankerin’ for some more Rausing that I’ve gone on to play the original flash game every day in half-hour stints. I just love it. I love the varying shades of brown that’s used to make up the surprisingly stunning visuals, I love the action that just piles on out of almost nowhere, I love the utter absurdity of the tasks challenged to you, I love its brilliant simplicity and I absolutely love the potential the final release promises.
In the PC build I got my hands on, there was only one level and a smattering of interchangeable crafts to make use of. But in the final release there promises to be 125 craft combinations and over 100 missions to complete. It’s also going to end up on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, alongside PC, Mac and Linux, so you don’t really have an excuse to pass this up when it eventually releases.
So, what makes it just so unfathomably good? Well, everything about it makes you feel empowered. Once you’ve chosen your ideal load out form the available craft parts – as each one has a different trait with strengths and weaknesses – it’s time to launch. If your interested, I opted for a heavy-body with extra health, a no-gravity engine, and I switched between a laser beam, burst-fire cannon and homing missiles. Once launched your ship rockets up into the air and it’s then time to ‘Raus’. It’s blissfully simple to fly, aim and shoot at targets and explosions and debris fill the skies as you take down your opponents. The better you do the more enemies are piled upon you and eventually you’ll be going up against huge battle cruisers that paint the sky with their bullets, or a zeppelin that enshrouds the sky, it could even be a submarine that sneaks up from the deep.
All of this incredible action is completed by an astounding soundtrack comprised of excellent chip-tune tracks composed by Jukio Kallio - A.K.A. Kozilek – who also did the score for the original Luftrauser. However, this time around it’s not just one track, it’s hundreds as there’s a track for every single ship combination – each track made up from the combination of your chosen parts. It’s just sublime and needs to be played loud, it just draws you into the shooting, pushes you to a higher plane of thought as you just let your fingers do the thinking for you.
I know this is horribly gushing, but there’s no real way to convey just how addictive, enjoyable and irresistible Luftrausers is. You just have to play it to know how right it is. Seeing as it’s missed its spring 2013 release, there’s clearly plenty of time for even more improvements and refinements to make this utter gaming perfection. But we’ll reserve full judgement for that until release.
