Chicks dig the long ball, and Homerun Battle 2 is full of them. It’s also about to get rather hellish, as there’s a new stadium called Hell Ground is now available. Hit some high heat, literally! Swing a hot bat! Other fire-related baseball puns! The stadium is available for 2500 goldballs in the game, half off its usual price for launch.

Of course, would it be baseball in the underworld without having Ol’ Scratch himself to play as? No, it would not. Thankfully, the Devil costume is unlockable, bringing with him a massive power boost. Mash taters as Mephistopheles! While getting the power of the Devil won’t come at the cost of one’s immortal soul, it will cost 6800 stars. I’m curious: is it against the rules to use performance-enhancing drugs as the Devil in Hell Ground? As well, four new Guardian costumes are available: White Tiger, HyanMu, Phoenix, and Blue Dragon.

Want to get in on this hot baseball action? Well, the game’s on sale for $0.99 in celebration of baseball’s Opening Day.

$0.99

Homerun Battle 2

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-11-17 :: Category: Games

All things considered, it’s a little odd how much of a phenomenon the social farm sim has become. Farming in real life is such a boring, tedious process and yet millions of people are spending loads of time and money doing it virtually. Com2us is hoping to plant some more excitement in those people’s lives with their new game Magic Tree.

Magic Tree’s gameplay consists of the same kind of seed gathering and crop harvesting one would expect from the genre. However, everything has been given a fantasy twist. Furthermore, the visuals are all rendered in full, colorful 3D that brings life to the fields, forests and animals. Besides farming, players can also raise pets, build beauty salons, go on rides, cook gourmet meals and defend their homes from invading creatures.

Magic Tree looks to offer a more fantastical farming experience. The game is available now for free on the App Store.

FREE!

Magic Tree by Com2uS

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-04-04 :: Category: Games

The Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) recently ran a competition in South Korea to help find some of the most intriguing upcoming titles from local developers, in order to help promote their gaming industry. Sixteen games were selected by the agency, and they will be released over the next 12 months, with titles being published by Gamevil and Com2us.

The first of these titles are Plants War, published by Gamevil, a strategy-RPG hybrid, and Cheese Please, a mousey puzzle game where players must try to eat the cheese in each maze, without dying from the many hazards present. The rest of the titles will range from arcade action titles like Dead City and KaTaNa. There’s Fruit Rush, a colorful puzzler with daily missions, and Sir Real, a 3D action RPG that will use the Unreal Engine. Even a selection of MMO titles will be involved: Astro Wars, King of Pirates, and Fantasy War, along with some social games like Golden Menu, Little Wizard, and Aqua Story. These games were all selected to show off the talent of the Korean game industry, trying to turn the country into a top worldwide content creator.

FREE!

Plants War

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-03-08 :: Category: Games

$0.99

Cheese Please

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-03-15 :: Category: Games

9 Innings: Pro Baseball has long been one of the best baseball simulators in the app store. It doesn’t quite take the game to a point of lifelike realism, but it does allow you to play a real season of baseball using actual baseball strategy. It is fairly easy to pick up and not so easy to put down… the perfect combination for good baseball fun.

Just in time for this years all star break, Com2uS is releasing 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011. The difference this year is that the game has a the MLB players license, meaning that every player in the game is actually a player in the MLB. The game uses actual players stats and data to derive the player ratings, giving the teams as close to a lifelike balance as possible.

If you’re looking for a baseball sim that retains some cartoony flair, pick up 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011 when it launches tomorrow.

Com2uS is the developer behind many titles, but they are perhaps best known for Inotia and Inotia 2: A Wanderer of Luone. It was with excitement, therefore, that I opened a recent email containing a beta testing invite for their newest project…a “fully-featured MMORPG on the iPhone.”

Yes, that’s right: a real MMO, not that Epic Pet Wars or Zombies Live nonsense. The game is titled IMO: World of Magic, and the feature list includes guilds, a party system, a friends list, and chatting as well as the inclusion of three character classes, 50+ skills, and a trading shop. I grabbed the beta build early this week and have spent some time wandering through IMO’s thirty zones. The game is indeed much like a “real” MMORPG. You’ve got guilds, skills, and monsters to kill. The game world has a cute Maple Story-like vibe and lag wasn’t bad at all, though only the real launch will reveal Com2uS’s server’s capabilities. (Also note that I was on WiFi.)

The game so far has been a mixed bag. There are translation errors, the “pick up items” button seems superfluous, and chatting is hampered by both an absurdly short text limit and a clunky in-game keyboard. On the other hand, combat works quite well; you can play as a warrior, ranged fighter, or mage, and each class comes with its own unique talents. Teaming up with other random player to hunt piggies and moving bushes is fun, and the world itself is very cheerful. Even with its flaws, it’s an impressive title simply because we haven’t seen a “real” MMORPG on the App Store. I can see this being a great pick-up-and-play title: killing a few monsters in those five-minute breaks that populate our lives is both easy and fun.

Strangely, there isn’t much of a story. Fetch quests from the villagers sort of give you an objective, but they’re hardly exciting and there’s no quest log to keep track of things. For now, IMO is mostly a grind: kill monsters, level up, gain skills and items, and kill some more monsters. Grind-fests are typical of Korean RPGs, but they certainly aren’t my favorite feature, and there’s little else to do right now.

IMO has a ton of potential, and this beta build is very impressive, especially from a technical standpoint. I’m still worried about the lack of a narrative, though. Once the revised version hits the App Store, rest assured that we’ll be giving it a full review!

Com2uS is set to release a sequel to its popular title Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor. The initial Chronicles of Inotia game arrived in late 2008, and was dubbed by Com2Us as “the first touch action RPG” available on the app store. Although reviews varied, Legend of Feanor enjoyed success for being one of the first in its genre to grace the iPhone.

Chronicles of Inotia: A Wanderer of Luone looks to up the ante in many regards, and to address the perceived rough spots from the first game. The following trailer was unveiled, which highlights much of the new gameplay:

Chronicles of Inotia: A Wanderer of Luone is being described as “a heroic journey through a land of magic, companionship, and a never ending battle against evil.” It shouldn’t be long before we can see for ourselves just how magical things get, as the sequel is currently being reviewed by Apple and is on schedule for a December release.

Com2Us, of Baseball Sluggers… er… Homerun Battle 3D fame, has a new game on the way. The game, Sniper vs. Sniper Online, is a significant departure from the friendly confines of their masterful homerun derby. After watching the preview video and checking out some screenshots, this may turn out to be the first non-sports game to really thrive online. I’ll never forget when Baseball Sluggers arrived in the app store. It was the very first online game that just worked… every single time, and amazingly still has a user base that plays online all day. If Sniper vs. Sniper works even close to as well, this one will be a surefire hit.

Much like Homerun Battle 3D, Sniper vs. Sniper allows you to seemingly instantly play against anyone online in the world. Also included is a co-op terrorist killing mode… allowing you to show some mercy on your poor friend that just can’t beat you. Another feature brought over from Homerun is the ability to earn special items within the 30 “special missions”… you know, to make your friend hunting sniper skills better.

The game should be live in October, and we should have a review up the following morning. In the meantime, enjoy some more screenshots and an extra video after the break!

Continue reading Sniper vs. Sniper Soon »

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Back at E3 I met up with Don Lim from Com2uS, who showed me a few of his upcoming games, one of which being Baseball Sluggers. At first glance, the game looked pretty fun, but certainly nothing groundbreaking. It looked like MLB Slugfest for the iPhone, except without an MLB license and limited only to the home run derby. Being the skeptical gamer that I am, I picked up the game with low expectations, thinking that the game would probably be average at best. But boy, was I wrong.

Instead of showing me all the different menu options and gameplay modes, Don had me just straight into the matchup mode, which is unlike anything else I had ever played on the iPhone. Within a minute of booting up the game, I was engaged in a matchup with one of the beta testers of the game in Korea. The game was easy enough to pick up instantly, but with a variety of pitches and speeds, had enough depth to satisfy my inner gamer. Surprisingly I ended up beating the beta tester, shocking Don… and myself. What can I say guys, I’m just good at sports games.
Continue reading Casual Gaming Perfection? »