Loot Raiders Review

Loot Raiders has a pretty self-explanatory name. It appeals to players' desire to create a hero and deck him or her out in cool looking gear. While the game definitely allows for this, everything about Loot Raiders is so menu-focused that it's hard to appreciate.

Upon booting up the app, players are asked to create a hero that comes from such humble beginnings that he or she is armed only with a stick and a wagon wheel. From here they learn the ins and outs, which largely consist of looking at a list of quests, choosing one, and then waiting for the quest to be over so that loot can be collected.

Of course there are quite a few additional elements - namely a Player vs. Player multiplayer mode, a guild system, some version of an auction house, and some character customization options - and these features can fuel quite a bit of players' initial drive to play. However, the base gameplay never changes from "push a button and wait," making everything present in Loot Raiders feel pretty thin.

To Loot Raiders' credit, it delivers on the promise of having loot and allowing players to outfit their characters with some pretty cool stuff. At any point, players can shift to a hero view to see their character in full alongside all of the stats that their gear provides them, and each completed quest provides animations of the decked-out hero battling enemies in addition to a DPS (Damage Per Second) Report. While I think these touches are nice and help make the endless pursuit of loot feel a little less pointless, the game itself feels rather empty.

With such a heavy reliance on menus and timers, Loot Raiders feels akin to a slightly more involved version of playing Progress Quest - or watching paint dry. While it can feel satisfying and does look nice, it just isn't as fun or interactive as it could be.