Radius

In geometry, a radius measures the distance between a sphere's perimeter and centre. In other words, it's half the length of the shape's diameter. Radius lives up to its namesake, drafting fun gameplay that unfortunately only goes half the distance. One mode of play, a lack of features, and technical flaws hardly encompasses our idea of a well-rounded game.

Radius turns your iPhone on its side for sphere-spinning action. Using your finger, the objective is to tap enemies that pop up on the sphere's surface. Since enemies appear across the entire surface area, you need to spin the sphere to locate them. Flicking your finger over the sphere sends in spinning in that direction. You can stop it from spinning by holding your finger down on the touchscreen. It takes a few sessions to acquaint yourself with the controls, as they're a tad on the sensitive side.

Enemies spawn at random and radiate out from a central spawn point. Naturally, tapping the spawn point destroys the enemy. Basic red foes radiate as a circular wave, while blue enemies expand outward as a line. Special yellow enemies split up into a trio of smaller foes when tapped. There are even critical white enemies that also spread out in a circular wave, but unlike red enemies they cover the surface of the sphere and prevent you from killing other enemies until you deal with them first.

Fail to destroy an enemy and your health gauge takes a hit. Surrounding the sphere is a circular health bar that regenerates over time. If an enemy launches a successful attack, however, your health drains. Obviously, it's game over when your health is depleted.

Simplicity reigns supreme in Radius. The design is minimal with great result. It's a remarkably easy game to play, yet provides a hearty challenge for those talented enough to survive the onslaught of enemies that appear on the sphere's surface. Even the presentation, which takes on a plain style and even lacks music, supports the overall minimalist approach that is quite attractive.

Unfortunately, Radius takes this minimal approach too far. With only one mode of play, there's absolutely no variety or lasting value. Including an extra mode or two, as well as online high-score rankings would have done much to instill some value to the game. Of course, Pattern Making Co promises online rankings in a future update, but it should have been included with the initial release.

Even worse, random crashes prevent the game from fully booting up, sending you back to the iPhone home page instead. Resetting the device is the only way to get the game to run properly. This happened several times with us, which is to say it's entirely unacceptable.

It's easy to like Radius, but there's just no a whole lot currently here. One lone mode of play, no music, and no online rankings keep the game from reaching its potential. For the price it's not a bad deal, yet it's clear more development time could have resulted in more rounded game.