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Inside Mac Games' Justin Ancheta has posted a new review of LUFTRAUSERS from Vlambeer and Devolver Digital. The unique new arcade-style aerial combat shooter gives interested pilots the chance to customize their very own “rauser” and "battle wily enemy fighters amongst the clouds or charge colossal battleships scattered across the open seas."

Here's an excerpt:

Luftrausers doesn't waste any time in making its presence, meaning, and ultimate purpose felt. After a quick publisher/developer title screen, you're launched right into a tutorial level that's less of a tutorial, and more of an in-your-face firefight for survival. You're put into a little plane with a machine gun and set free to shoot anything and everything that's in your sight. It's here that the game introduces you to its key mechanic: stall-based flight controls.

The side-scrolling 2D style of Luftrauser's gameplay is immediately reminiscent of Asteroids’ myriad derivatives. However, unlike the weightlessness of space, you are constantly bound by gravity, and you do not have the benefit of inertia keeping you in motion. Letting up on your thrust stalls your plane, but it also significantly increases your turning speed. Because the controls let you almost stop and turn on a dime in mid-air, you’re allowed to deftly dodge and weave your way through swarms of incoming enemy projectiles with incredible ease. This is important once later units like the Battleship and Blimp appear, and it adds an Ikaruga-esque bullet-hell element to the action.

IMG Review: LUFTRAUSERS

LUFTRAUSERS

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