It’s hard to write an abstract and arcade-based introduction after having just written one for radiangames Fluid. But here I am, talking about another arcade-y radiangames title, this one beingradiangames Fireball, the developer’s take on the Pacifism mode in Geometry Wars. Let me get straight to the point; while Fluid didn’t reach its arcade aspirations, Fireball is the greatest arcade experience that radiangames has created thus far.
In Fireball you control a little… fireball all dual-joystick like, and instead of shooting things (radiangames specialty) you’re moving around the level and attracting the attention of angry little snowball enemies who chase you no matter what. The point of Fireball is to lure large groups of snowballs together, and then blow them up. There are two different methods of blowing up your enemies: the first being attracting them to floating bombs on the level which you activate by flying through its proximity field which initiates its countdown, and the second method is by blowing up a certain amount of enemies with the bomb which then creates a nova power-up which – when touched – creates a giant supernova that eradicates anything with a given 360-degree angle area.
This is all done in the name of increasing your highscore and getting higher on the leaderboard. What’s that? Leaderboard? Indeed! While Fluid was lacking a leaderboard, Fireball is decked out with a leaderboard feature that you can use to compare your score against friends and other people globally. It’s a very functional feature that is easy to navigate and provides information quickly and effectively.
A complaint that I have is that I wish there was an in-game counter which informed you of the player closest to you score-wise so you can have an in-game objective instead of having to exit out of the game back-and-forth to check who’s next on the leaderboard. Overall it’s a good leaderboard system, but it could’ve used a little more creative spark so that the feature would stand out from others.
But regardless, the amount of content here on display is staggering and well worth its $1 price tag alone. You have the highly replayable and addicting “Wave” mode which runs you through 8 different levels that increases difficulty drastically over time by adding new enemies and obstacles, you also have two different difficulty modes which give you two vastly different options depending on how you want to play the game. Don’t care about points and just want to have a good time? Check out the “Chilled” difficulty level which reduces difficultly of the game and turns off the points feature so there’s no pressure, while “Normal” has full points and leaderboard support,
And finally there’re four different “Challenge” levels which offer unique scenarios for you to run though and try to get as much points as possible within a certain time limit. What’s more, the Challenge levels also have their own leaderboard which makes each Challenge level much more replayable and addicting. The only issue I have with the “Challenge” levels is that I wish they had some kind of description that explains what scenarios each one contains, as I’m still not completely sure how some of them are different from each other.
radiangames Fireball is bursting at the seams with well-designed arcade gameplay, a very functional leaderboard system, and a ton of content just waiting for you to delve deep into it. If you’re way into competitive leaderboard arcade gameplay, then go buy it now. Despite a couple issues that I see (the leaderboard, while functional, could use a little more “juice” to pump it up and make it stand out), Fireball is another must-buy radiangames title that’ll last you quite some time. Or, at least until radiangames Crossfire 2 comes out.