The number of remakes really was a homage to how incredible the game is. I remember myself and my friend on the floor crying in laughter over some modded Liero shenanigans. As far as I remember, the original Liero webpage described Liero as a game built around an idea for physics - so replicating said physics isn't entirely trivial.

I also recall that OpenLiero was doing a "whitebox" implementation of the physics (much like OpenRCT). That project should be pretty close if you're looking for something run on your desktop.

This page is 1000% spot-on. My muscle memory even kicked back in, after more than a decade.