Game Reviews

Dragon Raiders

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iOS
| Dragon Raiders
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Dragon Raiders
|
iOS
| Dragon Raiders

As anyone who's been monitoring the activity of dragons in recent popular media will attest, they're truly fearsome (fictional) beasts.

Scourge of sky and land alike, with their fiery breath and impenetrable scales. Irrepressible. Uncontainable. Flee for your lives!

Which leads us nicely to Dragon Raiders, wherein you guide a puny dragon along a narrow corridor, collecting coins until you're thwarted by a low wall.

Dragon me down

Yep, it's another endless runner in the Temple Run mould.

Of course, here you're not limited to three lanes of movement. Thanks to your pipsqueak dragon's pipsqueak wings, you have SIX potential paths to switch between with a swipe of your finger.

Steady!

It's not a lack of originality that does for Dragon Raiders though. It's a fundamental lack of drive.

Dreams in runes

The developer encourages you to think about the treasure you're collecting here. Each coloured gem is worth more when collected consecutively with others of its colour.

What this really means, though, is that you find yourself avoiding most of the big shiny collectibles that every gaming instinct tells you to head for.

That could be fine, potentially. But when runes of any colour are in fairly short supply in each brief level, it can leave the game feeling a little empty and lifeless.

What's more, with a set number of runes to collect in order to grab one of each level's three available stars, you'll probably feel inclined to just collect everything you see anyway.

Lacking depth

There's also the somewhat disconcerting fact that Dragon Raiders's sense of depth and spatial alignment occasionally lets you down. You'll find yourself either missing runes altogether or crashing into a tree trunk due to being on the wrong plane.

It lends a somewhat vague, unfinished feel to the game. That's a bit of a shame, as the basic art style is colourful and chunky, if a little indistinct.

That colourful presentation and an RPG/Pokémon-like dragon-evolving aspect may appeal to younger gamers, but for everyone else, Dragon Raiders runs out of puff quite early on.

Dragon Raiders

A somewhat flat, vague 3D runner that doesn't really bring anything new or exciting to the genre
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.