Developed by Red Zebra games and published by Crescent Moon, Raid Leader is a bold attempt to pep up the real time strategy genre, largely overlooked on the iOS. 

If you’ve ever played World of Warcraft, or MMOs of its ilk, you’ll have been looking forward to trying this.  Based on a very similar game mechanic involving epic bosses, strategy and, of course, raiding, Raid Leader brings a lite MMO to a single-player platform.

Now rather than getting your laptop out, you can relax on your couch with your iPhone or iPad and enjoy a very similar experience.

Set in the land of Eldentir each player controls the core ideals of any MMO:  A tank (Knight), a ranged damage dealer (Hunter) and a healer (Priest) and because you play all three of them, you only have yourself to blame when things go wrong >_<

There are fifteen levels, spread out across the land, and each boss features their own fighting style (as with any MMO). 

This means you will need a re-think on your strategy with each boss.  Await the surprise, somewhat random content though (not much point in telling you what that is or it wouldn’t be a surprise!).

In its use it’s very much like Battleheart, with the “tap and drag” controls – and that will be called upon you when you need to kill those evil blood worms or break free from the restraints cast upon you by your opponents!

Once you’re down to the nuts and bolts of it though, the fights are what you’d expect: the tank moves in and controls the order, the Priest heals the tank, the ranger damage dealer possibly kites the enemy around the tank with his bow and, if you’re skilled enough, you’ll attack some more! Each fight starts off the same and my main criticism of this is that it starts too slowly.  

But, as with the best MMOs, the intensity increases quickly and you’re rapidly fed into the jaws of the beast.

When you do manage to down a boss, you get some loot (gold only) – which increases in value with the difficulty level. 

You can spend the loot (gold) on new skills and abilities and you have an inspiring thirty of those to choose from.  Each one of your characters (Knight, Hunter, Priest) can only use two at a time, however, but you can switch between them for varying difficulties of your opponent. 

Some skills are active (actions you use in combat) and some are passive (abilities that increase your skills in combat) – in keeping with many MMOs.  Crescent Moon say, “Raid Leader features a fluid and intuitive control system and a unique perks and ability system which offers lots of combinations.”

In summary:

Pros: 

“Like a nicotine patch for a WoW addict” – Toucharcade.com, just about covers it – but…

1.  Tap and drag controls

2.  No “nooooooobs” to contend with in what is essentially an MMO(bile)RPG

3.  Fifteen Unique encounters (bosses) to work your way up to

4.  Each boss has their own different style of combat

5.  Random events

6.  Gold to loot that can be spent on skills

7.  Several arena levels to work though as an aside to the main content

8.  Graphics and music are great!

Cons:

1.  No specific character levels

2.  The only “loot” is gold – not gear

3.  No real story to follow

4.  Some options are tiny and best viewed on the iPad instead

5.  Difficulty rating of bosses is to too widespread – easy to start, ridiculously hard toward the end.

6.  Lack of content beyond the 15 bosses.

If there’s an MMORPG on this planet that some player or other doesn’t moan about, I’d sign up for it immediately.  Given the non existence of that in The Cloud, Raid Leader is barely going to please its full target market either.   

All that said though, I like many elements of this app –  and even having played Battleheart for some time now, this game is the closest I’ve got to experiencing an MMO on a single-player platform. 

It might be just a token offering from Crescent Moon (purist app fans seem somewhat disturbed they even bothered to release this!) but if they can work with Red Zebra to improve on it, one day we’ll have an absolute winner!

Category: Games, Action RPG
Type: Universal App
Seller: Crescent Moon Games

Price for iPhone: $0.99 (As of: February 18, 2012 Report)


Price for iPad: $0.99 (As of: February 18, 2012 Report)

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