Cheap Seats – Radio Flare (iPhone)

Welcome to Cheap Seats, where we talk short and sweet about media on a budget price! This week is a 99 cent iPhone game, Radio Flare.

Made my Studio Radiolaris, this game mixes a R-Type-like ship you control with your left thumb, and a cursor you control with your right thumb Rez style.

The object of the game is to chain as many ships together in one swipe as you can (max of 4 in one swipe) to collect points. Ships you destroy also leave behind red pellets you pick up, which advance you through the levels. In later levels you do run into massive swarms of enemies, and you’ll need to be pretty quick about getting them all to survive. It gets hectic, but not overwhelmingly so.

The same bills itself as a music game, but I did not notice much of an impact on the soundtrack as I would in a game like Rez. The soundtrack is good, although the confirmation sound when you swipe across enemies does sound suspiciously like the sound effect from Rez, as does the destruction of enemies sound.

I like that you can continue from where you left off when you leave the game, and that if you die you can start on any of the arcade levels you wish to. Bomb Run, honestly, I had no idea what was the difference between that and Arcade was. Flow is a mode where you take no damage, so it’s just a chillout mode. The game does connect to the Steam/PSN/XBL-esque Feint network, which is pretty cool. It can also connect to Facebook and Twitter to send out acheivement notices, which is sort of neat.

For 99 cents, it’s really hard to go wrong with the game. It’s pretty fun, and even if you only get an hour or two our of it, that’s pretty damn good for the price.

Why You Should Buy Radio Flare: 99 cents, fun, good soundtrack

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Radio Flare: You don’t have 99 cents, hate fun, don’t like music