I really can't say enough good things about the Baseball Superstars series. They've been getting better and better over the years, and I've spent a ridiculous amount on the 2011 edition which now comes in two flavors. Baseball Superstars 2011 Pro [$4.99] and the new free Baseball Superstars 2011 [Free]. (There's also a Baseball Superstars 2011 Lite [Free], but I'm not sure what the point of downloading that is anymore.)

The great thing about Baseball Superstars, as I explained at length in our review is that it successfully scratches not one but two itches at once. If you like baseball and filling experience bars, this is the kind of game that you can get entirely too involved in as you spend hours training up the various members of your super player roster. You can even play online against other players' teams. It isn't real time, and you're basically just playing an AI controlled match using their stats, but it's still pretty cool.

So what's the catch of Baseball Superstars 2011 now that it's freemium? Well, in most of the Superstars games you could buy various upgrades using G-Points, an in-game currency of sorts you bought via IAP. Now, the "Pro" version comes loaded with 3,000 of 'em, and the freemium version you've got to buy any G-Points you want. Also, the new free version comes with a bit of in-game advertising. The good news is, using and buying G-Points is entirely optional, and if all you want to do is play some baseball, you can do it totally free now.

Paradox Interactive is targeting multiple high-profile platforms for the release of its tower defense game Defenders of Ardania: Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PC, and... the iPad?

Yeah, that’s right -- the iPad. We don't know too much about Defenders of Ardania yet, but this type of development illustrates the ever-growing pull Apple has on the digital market. You see, games that are usually slated for "major platforms" (which generally consist of the PS3, Xbox 360, and sometimes the PC) typically don’t see an immediate release on the iPad. Or at least, the iOS version isn’t mentioned in the same breath as these other, I guess you could say, “more important” platforms. So, score one for Apple here as it continues to shoulder its way into core development plans.

Oddly enough, this doesn't seem that out of the ordinary anymore. We’re seeing quite a few developers bringing substantial ports to iOS. Telltale Games, for example, is queuing up iPad versions of its popular properties. We’ve seen the release of the first chapter of Tales of Monkey Island and will eventually see a release of the Back to the Future series on the platform. Games like Dungeon Defenders not only run on multiple platforms, but soon will support multiplayer between all of them as well.

It's really cool seeing iOS devices considered a "major platform" by more and more game developers. What's going to be even cooler to see is what happens in the future as the next generation of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are released which will inevitably close the performance gap even more between portable devices and home consoles. I can't wait.

The latest game from Mika Mobile, creators of Zombieville USA [$1.99 / Lite / HD] and OMG Pirates! [$1.99 / Lite], hit the App Store today. Battleheart [$2.99] is a fantastic game of fantasy combat which is not only universal with complete iPad support, but also comes packed with some great Retina Display friendly graphics. I'm not entirely sure I'd call Battleheart an RPG, but it definitely has tons of RPG elements, making it very easy to enjoy for anyone who likes gearing up characters and filling experience bars.

Gameplay consists of a series of battles with your four character party. There are a ton of different character classes, and which classes you pack in to your crew greatly changes how the battles play out. For instance, your party can be melee based, entirely ranged, well rounded, or a mixture of basically anything. Most combinations I've tried seem to work well, with the only real requirement being some kind of healing ability on levels with boss-type encounters. (Although with careful micromanagement and highly leveled characters I'm not sure if this is true or not.)

Controlling the game is simple and hinges heavily on the line drawing mechanic that has become so familiar on iOS devices. To move your character, you draw a line from where they are to where you want them to go. To attack a monster, you draw a line from the character to the monster. To heal a character, you draw a line from your healer to the character that needs healing. In addition, each character has a special ability (with more learned as you level up) that can be accessed by tapping a character then tapping its respective icon.

Check out the trailer to see how this all goes together:

Under normal circumstances, I'd be praising this game like non-other and recommending that anyone with a functional finger load it on whatever device it is that they play iOS games on. Unfortunately, Battleheart seems to have quite a few nasty crash issues resulting in quite a few people on our forums as well as myself unable to make it past a particular battle in the game. These crashes seem extremely random, with some people able to play the game just fine, and others crashing like crazy.

The good news is, we've been in contact with Mika Mobile and they share our frustration as they haven't encountered a single crash in their hundreds of hours of pre-release testing. Regardless, fixing these issues and submitting an update is their top priority. We'll wait for the update to land before we post our full review. In the meantime, if you feel like rolling the dice on whether or not the game will be crashy on your device, you'll be in for a real treat with Battleheart, assuming said dice roll in your favor.

Hey, Tilt To Live’s [$2.99 / Lite / HD] “Viva La Turret” expansion is available on the iPad now. For older users with the full version of the game, the expansion is being offered as an optional .99 cent in-app purchase. To keep things simple for fresh and upcoming users, according to developer One Man Left, the game mode is also being packed into the actual full version of the title, raising the price of the app by a dollar from $3.99 to $4.99.

Great, but what is Viva La Turret? It’s an expansion that adds a new mode and a turret gun called “The Perforator.” In a nutshell, it’s a points-grabbing mode with a lot of crazy points multipliers. Aided by the bullet-spewing Perforator, you’ll unleash hell on swarms of projectiles attempting to bust into your avatar’s mushy insides. In turn, these bad dudes drop blue orbs that give you points.

You can check out a video of the action here in our older post about the expansion, which hit on the iPhone in late 2010.

As you’d imagine, the increased screen area of the iPad will make things a bit different in this version of the expansion. As pointed out on One Man Left’s iPad-specific blog post, the game’s barriers are now further apart, meaning it’ll be harder to get those smash kills. Also, the jewels will now spawn further apart making collection just a little bit more of a challenge.

One cool thing that sets the iPad version apart from its predecessor on the smaller screen is the “cruel new wave” added to the action. Because you’re a bit safer due to the screen size, One Man Left has added a wave that only spawns when you’re out of the Perforator that should lead to some breakneck dashes to the safety of the giganto turret.

That sounds great, right? And look forward to a little special something for your purchase if you grab this expansion. One Man Left has revealed plans to push out a co-op update for owners of Viva La Turrett called “Viva La Co-Op” that’ll have you and a partner taking turns either using the Perforator or collecting the blue drops. One Man believes it’ll have the iPhone version of this out by next month, so keep a watch on that.

We've been following Gameloft's upcoming Zelda-esque game Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden for quite a while now as they've been slowly releasing more videos and other details. The latest launch trailer reveals even more gameplay along with the release date of February 3rd. Now, if you're a regular around here, you know that this actually means that the game will hit New Zealand's App Store early tomorrow morning, then filter out to the rest of the App Stores throughout the day.

Anyway, check out the new trailer:

We plan on taking a closer look at the game as soon as we can get our hands on it. As I mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of the Zelda series, and seem to have an unnatural liking to anything with similar gameplay mechanics. I've got my fingers crossed that Gameloft nails this style of gameplay in Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Last week at Macworld 2011, I met up with the folks from Chillingo to check out an upcoming iPad game that they’re tentatively calling Play Kalei. It’s an extremely casual title, but the idea for the gameplay is really clever and unique. After trying out their work-in-progress version of the game, it’s actually quite a lot of fun as well.

The basic idea in Play Kalei is that you’re presented with a high quality photograph and a random point of the picture is highlighted in a circular window in the upper corner of the screen. The catch is that the window highlighting the point in the photograph is shown as if you’re looking at it through a kaleidoscope, and you must find that particular point by matching the kaleidoscope view in a second window by sliding your finger around the screen.

Ok, it's a completely hard idea to explain, but this video shows how the gameplay works in Play Kalei:

While the core mechanic is pretty casual, there’s a nice 3 star grading system that ties into how fast you’re able to complete each picture, which adds a more compelling dynamic to the gameplay. You will also be able to import and use any of your own photographs to play the game, and coupled with the randomized nature of how it chooses points in the picture there should be a decent amount of replay value on offer.

Play Kalei is in the polishing stages and still may undergo a name change, but should be hitting the App Store within the next couple of months and we’ll take another look at the game when it's available.