Radius is an arcade action game which charges players with protecting their sphere from the evil expanding circles. The game feels like an ultra modern take on arcade classics like Missile Command and Tempest. Radius is developed by the guys at PatternMaking Co and is currently on sale for $.99 at the iTunes App Store.

When starting a new game of Radius players hear something that resembles the classic Pole Position start sound. I’m not sure this is an intentional nod to classic gaming, but it’d be pretty cool if it was. After the game start sound the spherical object you’ve sworn to protect begins being attacked. The attacks come in waves which become increasingly dense with both enemies and enemy types. The enemies in Radius are small circles with plus signs inside them. During each wave a small beeping sound indicates the number of attacking enemies. The enemies are placed all over the spheres surface and begin to grow. Some enemies sweep across the surface, some grow around the perimeter and others seem to grow in volume. When enemies grow around the entire surface of your sphere you loose some health. To destroy enemies you must first spin the sphere to located the enemy and then tap the center of the enemy’s origination point which is marked by a plus sign. Some enemies split when tapped, some simply reduce in size and other are promptly vanquished.

Radius is unique and original arcade game that is a lot of fun to play once you figure out exactly what’s going on. I saw a video on YouTube which claimed the World’s high score for Radius as of June 2008 was 100,355. That made me feel pretty accomplished because I scored 101,736 my third time playing the game. When first playing Radius I would constantly spin the circle looking for things to destroy. Once I learned the attacks came in waves I would wait for the attacker sounds to stop, look for power ups and then begin spinning and tapping. Speaking of power ups, there are three of them in Radius. There’s a power up to slow down time, one to double your points and one to kill everything. All of the powers are useful if used right after a wave of attacks begins. Power ups used at the end of a attack waves are basically wasted.

While Radius is a fun and unique iPhone gaming experience, it does have a few problems. First the game crashes on startup more then I’d like. Simply rebooting your iPhone should take care of the problem but, it’s still pretty annoying. Radius also suffers from a lack of depth and features. There are no levels in Radius, every time you play you get to start from the beginning. There is also only one game mode in Radius. Given the score I talked about earlier it would have been cool if Radius had an online score submission system, unfortunately it doesn’t.

On a more opinion based note, I found the scrolling and searching for enemies to be a tad bit tedious and frustrating in Radius. At first I thought the solution would be for Radius to allow players to toggle some sort of transparency on the sphere that would let them see through the thing in order to find enemies. While I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not, I would like to see some sort of indicator as to how many enemies are left on the sphere.

Radius is a unique game that has a lot going for it. The game play, number of enemy types and power ups all serve to compliment this interesting arcade style game. Unfortunately, Radius is held back from greatness by its lack of depth and features. At $.99 cents fans of classic arcade games may want to check it out, if the price goes any higher I’d wait for some bug fixes and additional features.

By: Aaron Robbins