For me, LUFTRAUSERS is a game that exemplifies the current 'indie craze' of being lauded for artistic style in place of actual content. In a way it's a sign of change (and in a good way at that) that these types of games are getting main stream recognition, but in another lifetime it feels like LUFTRAUSERS would have just been a flash game, and would have been free.
LUFTRAUSERS gimmick is its sepia hued. That’s basically it. Though you can unlock different hues, I never played with them, they looked awful.
Yes the world has moved on from flash portals and those kinds of games now have a new home called the App Store. So yes, it’s not outrageous in itself to be charging money for this style of game, but I do have issue with the amount. If I'd paid around £2, like many a game on the App Store, I'd have played it and walked away and felt like I got my money's worth, not saying I would have enjoyed it more, but I wouldn't have felt like I should have expected more. At £6.99 I feel like I should be getting more of a return for my investment.
All the incentive to play is; score attack and fulfilling objectives like ‘kill x of y’ or ‘get a score of z’, but that doesn’t really change how you’re going to play the game, you were going to be doing those anyway. The score attack or the objectives (I was never really clear which) unlock equipment for your plane, and while the game may boast more than 125 combinations, there's little incentive from the game itself to mix it up, just your own desire to experiment. Also, the later upgrades suck for the most part, for example the 'homing' missiles need a lot of coaxing to avoid them just nose diving into the sea.
And that's fundamentally my problem; the game isn't much fun. You play within a single area, that appears to loop, that's quite tall, though enemy boats at the bottom can shoot you at the top of it, so flying to the top is only a disadvantage to yourself. The controls are simple, (though menu navigation is a chore as the button that accesses a given menu changes depending on current screen) yet somehow it never feels like you have complete control, it's only possible to make fine changes to direction, or complete changes, it feels like there's no mid ground, which makes trying to manoeuvre a pain. There are a number of different enemies, but there’s a gradual build up to the stronger enemies that the game follows, so in a game where you're expected to die a lot, you're going to see the same few over, and over, and over. Also, get used to that background music, you're going to be hearing that same small part of it every time too...
The game is certainly functional, and I guess that’s something to praise with the modern indie craze, a game being released in a non 'early access' form, but there's so little content provided and a generic shoot-'em-up experience at best.