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It’s always good to see quality titles when a gaming platform first launches. When the Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360 took off, Geometry Wars led the charge, and the similarly addictive Radius looks to be using its fast paced action-puzzle originality to do the same for Apple’s iPhone.

Radius makes use of chaos and overwhelming odds to force players in to a finger tapping frenzy in order to achieve a high score as they rotate a sphere to locate damage dealing enemies. Various types of baddies are taken out at the tap of a thumb, though certain ones split off in to smaller bunches, while others require rapid presses as they engulf your planet-like object in a gray plague.

This variety keeps things fresh, though frenetic. Prioritizing which specific circular menace needs to be dealt with first can confuse, particularly when ten or more are spread out across the world. While that’s to its detriment, it’s also the essence of Radius‘ fun: you’ll have to punch the touch screen as fast and as sensibly as you can (thoughtless mashing doesn’t work. Sorry, cheaters) if you don’t want serious decreases to your health.

The combination of fast paced and simple action with subtle puzzle elements means that its hard to put down. No matter how stressful things get as your rotatable sphere is swarmed with mass attackers, you’ll immediately want to give it another go to top your high score, or a bud’s should they decide to share with you. No online leaderboards is a bummer, but always having your previous high score glaring at you from the main menu entices you to play further.

Progression plays a big part, as technical thinking becomes a huge factor one you break the 50,000 point mark (which takes about five minutes of solid play). Fast and senseless rotations will have you blowing past critical enemies that need an immediate squashing, while extremely helpful power-ups (a devastating kill-everything nuke, a 2x multiplier and slowed time) become almost invisible beneath the hordes of red, yellow and blue bad guys when the spinning gets too quick.

It’ll take some time to be able to crack the fairly respectable 100,000 point barrier, but the further players advance the bigger the points they pull in. It shouldn’t take too long, anyway. Once you drop the measly couple bucks to play Radius it’ll be tough to put it down. Rounds’ success rate vary, as spawning is completely random, and sometimes it becomes too much to handle within the first couple minutes. If you sneak in a good round, however, a portable-friendly five to ten minute session could net you impressive bragging rights.

I’m not entirely fond of the game’s aesthetic, which is perhaps its most criminal flaw. The future-techno look of the quadrant-separated sphere doesn’t mesh too well with the standard, flat colors of the enemies. The plain-gray spread mentioned earlier particularly give things a turn for the fugly, but despite a lack of texture or Geometry Wars neon glow, Radius is loads of fun at a cheap price.

Nab it before the small team of developers wises up and starts charging a proper five–ten bucks for it.

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