App Review: Radiant

From the creators of Buka and Totemo, Hexage has brought another stellar game to the Android platform; Radiant.  Radiant is an arcade style shooter game reminiscent of classics like “Galaga.”  Hexage, true to their style, adds their own unique twist and details into the game play.

The premise is simple, you are Max Blaster who gets caught up in a full scale alien invasion.  Max Blaster must blast his way through increasingly difficult levels to get to the head alien, the Super Creep!  Highlights of the game include:

• great use of the touchscreen; press on either side of the screen to control your ship (you can also use the trackball or the 1 and 0 buttons)
• auto-shoot; no need to wear out your thumb, your ship keeps firing at a steady flow
• graphics; while they are intentionally simple to remind us of the games of past, attentions to detail, such as the ship shifting as it moves, make it stand out
• story line; it is a pretty typical arcade story, bad guy is trying to take over the universe, good guy tries to stop him, however it is played out through a dialog between the Super Creep and Max, which evolves into rather humorous trash talking
• space shop; special attributes and weapons are gained through the typical method in these games (falling from recently destroyed aliens). There are also occasional stops in space stations where you can purchase upgrades (or extra lives!)
• leader board; high scores are tracked and you can compete for the top spot across all Radiant players

• addictive; if you are a fan of these types of games, you will not be disappointed.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this game, here were the cons I found:

• occasionally didn’t see an alien or enemy fire hidden under my thumb while using the screen for navigation
• there are a few ‘asteroid’ fields you have to navigate through, I personally don’t like these as much; rather slow going and no points awarded for shooting or dodging asteroids

Neither of these issues deeply affected my enjoyment of the game and are only very minor irritations and may well just be limited to my experience and I would highly recommend the game.  Radiant is available in the Android Market for £1.50 (roughly $2.40 USD) or there is a “Lite” version available for free.

You can grab the game out of the Android Market today.  For added convenience, you can scan the barcode below!