Lazy Raiders recently hit Xbox Live bringing a pretty unique twist to a game filled with platforming action and puzzles. In Lazy Raiders you can either play as Dr. Diggabone or as your very own Avatar. The premise of the story is that Dr. Diggabone is on a quest to retrieve 16 Lost Relics that will give him instant fortune and glory. There are eighty levels that you will have to go through (five of them being tutorial levels) so the game will keep you busy, at least for a little while. There is certain criteria that you will need to meet before you can advance in each level though and certain puzzles that you will need to figure out. When you first start playing this game you might think that the difficulty is really easy, however, that definitely changes as you get farther into the game.

The game mechanic in this title is very interesting because you don’t actually control the main character. Instead you control the world around him by being able to rotate the world a full 360 degrees. By doing this Dr. Diggabone will slip and slide along the environment and pick up any treasure he comes in contact with along the way. You will also come across various hazards such as spikes, explosive boxes, boulders and more. Independently these items won’t do anything to you, however, if you happen to be standing by one and then hit the button to turn everything upside down, they could end up falling on your head and injuring you, or worse. Fortunately, you have infinite lives in this game so you can just keep trying until you get it right. Your point total for the round will suffer, however, that is about it. This game does feature leaderboard support which gives the game immediate replayability for those who want to be at the top or for those who simply want to achieve a gold ranking on every level. The overall goal of every level is to find the “Golden Pick” so that you can dig your way to the next level. You accomplish this by finding keys to unlock doors, avoiding hazards and picking up any treasure you can get your hands on. There are also hazards that will only work when a certain condition is met. Say, for example, you come across three things that can shoot out fire, however, only two of them are working. If you flip the world then the two that were working won’t work anymore and the one that was previously not working will be fully functional. There are definitely times where you will have to think for a moment before you proceed.

Overall, Lazy Raiders is definitely a fun title. A free demo is available so there really isn’t any excuse for not trying this game out. If this is your type of game I definitely recommend purchasing it as you will have a lot of fun trying to master all the levels. It is what everyone wants from a game on Xbox Live Arcade: it’s fun, a breath of fresh air and something that we haven’t seen a whole bunch of times. With all of the new releases hitting store shelves (both real and virtual) be sure not to miss out on this title.

Score 8/10

Originally posted on Totally Gaming Network