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When my husband and I were dating, one of my fondest memories is kicking past the random piles of socks and pizza boxes to enter the sacred space of his mancave, where we goofed away precious hours playing International Superstar Soccer on an old school Nintendo 64 console.

I have limited hand-eye coordination. Sports are not for me, sadly. Despite the current mitigating factors (career, pregnancy, mortgage, adulthood), I indulge my occasional fantasies as a glamorous, dewy-skinned and fresh-faced soccer star. No matter how firmly we deny it, superstar fantasies rarely fade.

Soccer Superstars 2012 by GAMEVIL is disappointing in its execution and delivery. These days, a gamer of almost any skill expects movie quality graphics and design that typically come free with the slick games widely available.

Soccer Superstars 2012 confuses from the start. The home screen is a fine point of entry, but the font is difficult to see on my iPhone. Chubby anime boys with lots of fearsome attitude invade the screen while Love Boat-ish muzak plays with shrill, unnerving force.

The plump anime cherubs are cutesy with gruff, exaggerated expressions, but my foray into attempting soccer keeps getting overridden by pop-ups that asks me to purchase more stuff. I like the option to choose brown, white, or alien skin. (I chose alien, for the record.) I select spiky hair for my players and name my team, but the screen continues to prompt purchasing.

Overall, the edge Soccer Superstars 2012 seems to be aiming for falls flat. It's generic and passable, yet it lacks polish. Too many complicated arrangements and possibilities that fail to complement a too simple design concept, which is difficult to access.

The bland graphics seem outdated--and not in a fantastically hip, retro way. A lackluster and addled mix of dull coloring and shallow screen depth are thrown together in a potluck mash-up that smacks of video game design circa 2000.

After working furiously, I am finally able to actually play soccer as the character I created. I flick the tiny ball with my virtual foot, and the posey anime girl with headphones remarks, "No! No! That is not right. TRY again." I feel frustrated, and I continue to think that if I picked up Soccer Superstars 2012 knowing nothing, I would be absolutely lost and abandon play immediately.

I want to like Soccer Superstars 2012. I want to give it a chance. I want to hear a throng of my adoring public cheering me into a swift net. But, like actual soccer, the journey to that ever-elusive net remains too arduous for me, not swift enough, and altogether elusive.

Suffering through killer plyometric workouts and dropping weighty fists of cash for brand name cleats may have to wait. For now, I can rest my aching pregnant bones on a cushy leather sofa and watch The World Cup.

Call me odd, but I don’t think that there are nearly enough Japanese ink brush themed video games out there. In fact, with one exceptional exception, that pretty much just leaves Sakura Slash. At least as far as I know. Of course, incorporating nifty visuals inspired by one of the world’s more fascinating cultures is only half of the equation. The other half involves the game actually being entertaining, and that’s certainly what GAMEVIL’s latest offering is. In small doses.

Sakura Slash is a slightly different take on the “Cutter” genre than what most iOS users have become accustomed to. The emphasis is still very much on swiping the screen in order to dispatch specific targets (in this case evil floating eyeball thingies), but there’s an increased need for quick reflexes. Most of the little nasties sit in one spot for a few seconds and simply wait to be destroyed. Other more mobile (and winged) enemies will try to escape to the sides of the screen. If they reach the edge, it takes away health. Once all the health is gone it’s Game Over, naturally. It’s very much an endurance trial with players earning special orbs used as currency with each playthrough that can be used to purchase temporary power-ups or permanent upgrades. However the limited ability to slow down time and trace a one-hit kill line of ink across the screen mixes things up a bit.

By removing the focus on gravity and avoiding certain objects in favor of total annihilation, Sakura Slash manages to feel like something both familiar yet totally different. It takes a quick finger to keep those bat-things in line. Fortunately there are a decent number of new brushes and other upgrades to keep players on more even footing, not to mention compulsively pull them along. And, of course, the watercolor-looking backdrops are quite pretty and fit the general theme quite well.

It might take a little while for Sakura Slash to really get its hooks in, though. Early progression is a tad on the slow side as it takes a while to earn enough orbs to start buying stuff. It’s also a little disappointing (but understandable) to see that enemy patterns aren’t actually random. They come fast enough that pretty much only a savant could memorize them all, but having been spoiled by all manner of procedurally-generated content it feels like something of a let down.

Even with the slow start Sakura Slash is still bound to please fans of cutting stuff as it moves through the air. It may not convert the fruit-faithful, but it’s just different enough that it might still turn their heads. Everyone else can simply enjoy a quality game about slashing floating eyeballs.

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.

Mobile app developer GAMEVIL has released the 2012 edition of its annualized Baseball Superstars series, and this edition includes some significant updates. For one, the franchise has made a move to high-resolution graphics, taking full advantage of Retina display capabilities. For the first time, Baseball Superstars will also be a universal app, allowing players to play at full screen resolutions on their iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Aside from its visual updates, Baseball Superstars 2012 also includes a few gameplay updates. New customization features let players design their team's uniforms and logo just to their liking. The My Pitcher and My Batter modes have been enhanced to allow players to build their team's stats and earn skill points. New tilt and gesture controls have been added, but the classic controls are still available. Rosters have also been updated with new Super Players and there are new missions and Game Center achievements.

Baseball Superstars 2012 is available now and free to play with additional content available via in-app purchase.