by Jed Pressgrove
One might wonder if some critics went easy on Luftrausers based on sympathy for developer Vlambeer and its cloned game, Radical Fishing. Luftrausers is a slick product that combines arcade/Atari shooting and scoring with mindless achievements disguised as missions. Simple yet not simple enough.
Everything about Luftrausers subdues player concerns about launching, saving, and dieing — old-school shooting without grit and urgency. The purpose of Luftrausers is to die trying and get rewarded for it. Is it fun killing five enemies in a continuous boost when the game tells you to? Should anyone feel proud to have destroyed a battleship during a “MAX” combo by intentionally dying to set off a nuke? No matter. You’re making steady progress, and here’s another upgrade for playing. The game is tedious not because of its difficulty but because of its modern, commanding banality.
The question isn’t whether Luftrausers is playable but whether it’s worth playing compared to its peers and ancestors. Luftrausers bastardizes rather than revives old-school shooting in contrast to less-marketed games like Titan Attacks, which combines arcade gameplay with modern upgrading in a more logical and skill-based fashion. Luftrausers’ control scheme apes Combat on the Atari 2600, a game that lacks glitter and single-player but whose neanderthal emphasis on face-to-face gaming blows away an online leaderboard for mediocrity. Hydorah, Asteroids, Vorpal, Tempest — good shooting has many names, and Luftrausers ain’t one of them.
Then there’s the imagery of Luftrausers that Game Informer called an “edgy, stylized faux-Nazi aesthetic.” Most critics don’t discuss this aesthetic, as pointed out by Nick Capozzoli. Indeed, it’s hard to care when the game itself doesn’t care. Vlambeer merely uses Nazi suggestions for style points. This approach should come as no surprise, as the developer once described Radical Fishing as “our simulation of the noble pastime that is traditional redneck fishing.” I sincerely question whether Vlambeer would know a real Nazi or redneck if it slapped them in the face.
There are far worse shooters than Luftrausers, and Vlambeer should be commended for its technical attention to detail. But all the hype over this game raises a question: has shooting fallen so far that the soulless missions of Luftrausers provide a new standard? As long we can remember why we have Space Invaders and Space Invaders Extreme, the answer is simple: No!
Game Bias 