Have a search through the Code Snippets and Codebase. I remember seeing tips on detecting other objects within a given range. It's used for cutting down on the number of checks to be made, and also for triggering AI of Non-player characters.
NG Collision will still work, and is easy once you've spent a couple of hours familiarising yourself. You can set the collision sphere to be any size you want. You can also set the result to be to take no action. This way, you can use the feedback functionality to see what else is within your collision spheres, without affecting the position of the objects.
@CMC101 - no sarcasm whatsoever. I have saved many hours of development time by ditching the hit-and-miss, slow DB collision for a tool that is very accurate, very fast and very easy to implement. The logic is highly structured, and once you spend a couple of hours understanding it, the power it gives you is immense.