Gamevil USA has opened the bull pen up and released Baseball Superstars 2007 for mobile phone platforms. The game follows up on the original with deeper gameplay to go with the already engrossing baseball action.

The game features a lot more than the one-button hit per miss action of other baseball games. Game modes like the Homerun Derby add a unique twist to the fun. For true-blue diamond fanatics, there's My League where you can create your own Superstar and guide him as he rises from a scrappy rookie to an esteemed veteran.

Gamevil business development VP Allen Lee expressed the company's pride in the title by stating "Baseball Superstars 2007 fills a prominent gap in the mobile baseball game market. The title is positioned as a lighter arcade-style baseball game, yet it has the deepest features in its class."

Superstars of Baseball should provide hours of entertainment even to the non-baseball savvy mobile owners. Check your service provider for the game's availability.

Vivendi is pulling out all the stops to unleash the popular orange marsupial Crash Bandicoot">Crash Bandicoot on mobile phones all over the world in Crash Bandicoot Party, the mobile equivalent of the DS title Crash: Boom Bang.

The mobile game features 14 hilarious mini-games in which you can play as Crash Bandicoot or one of his friends. You can choose to play the Cow Shoot as Doctor Cortex, the Infernal Tower as Nina Cortex, the Survivor as Coco or Crash Baseball as Crunch, among others.

Crash Bandicoot Party features one-thumb gameplay, making it another intuitive and easy-to-play game for everybody. With the game's one-thumb gameplay, you know which button to use no matter which mini-game you’re playing. It is also the first ever multi-player party mobile game, with a new gameplay option that lets you play with your friends on the same mobile.

Crash Bandicoot Party is available throughout Europe. For a little preview, check out the screenshots below.

 

While technophiles the world over got worked up and hyperventilated at Steve Jobs' announcement of the iPhone, the Japanese simply looked up a while from their keitai, then went on with their business. And the reason for this? The fact that the iPhone has nothing new to offer to them.

While Jobs boasts of the iPhones new interface, the Japanese are finding it hard to believe that it is a "revolutionary product" that will "change everything". Apple also notes that the iPhone can be used to download music and surf the internet, as well as support one-way conferencing in the future. Over at Japan, the whole population have already been doing all this for years. On top of that, most phones can support five-way video conferencing, and their mobiles can also be used to buy train tickets, pay for taxi rides, design a webpage, update a blog, pay for puchases at the convenience store, book hotel reservations, watch a movie or the latest baseball game, use GPS, get exclusive content by scanning a barcode on the seats at the baseball stadium, and an entire plethora of other features and uses which Apple still seems to be clueless about (they should probably start off by checking out Strap-Ya, or something).

All this can again be attributed to one main attribute that Apple is missing, and that would be 3G technology. At the moment, the iPhone is still on a second-generation network.

So, when Japanese retailers were told about the amazing, new iPhone and its features, one shopkeeper merely laughed and said, "Sounds like business as usual".

Squeenix (pardon me for using such a childish contraction) is best known for making games that have your character level up in some form or another. Be it in an Action-RPG setting in Kingdom Hearts II, or in a turn based strategy game like say Front Mission. That's why people's eyes rolled when they heard that Squeenix will be making a basketball game for Nintendo in the form of Mario Hoops, and understandably so.

Squeenix making a basketball game? Why? Can they? Will they somehow have Mario use gambits or something? Apparently, Mario Hoops was not that hot review-wise. A lot said it was good, but they're hesitant to attach the word "great" beside the game. Maybe it was too weird for some?

Speaking of weirdness, here's the latest WTF game creation by Squeenix. Gamasutra reports:

Square Enix and Sony BMG have announced "mobile dance game" Destiny's Child Groove due later this winter, featuring images of vocalists Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams as well as versions of the popular group's songs.

Beyonce plus Square equals what?! Apparently the game is supposed to be a back-and-forth dance battle in which users compete against dancing AI, and the game should feature a bevy of Destiny's Child hits.

Why Squeenix why!

But if you thought Mario Hoops and this latest one by Square-Enix weirds you out, just take a look at this list of non-RPG/non-Strategy games that Squeenix has made through the years. You tell us if they're any good. (Note that games released only in Japan have JP on them)

That long list, and the rest of the article after the Jump!

Take me out to the ballgame
Take me out to the crowd
Buy me a handset or mobile phone
I don't care if we never get back
Cuz it's root root root for the broadcast
(Yes, Sprint is covering this game)
And it's one two three strikes you're out in the old ball game!

Sprint Nextel Corp. and Major League Baseball Advanced Media (the Internet arm of Major League Baseball) have a new service: radio broadcasts of Major League games will be available to Sprint subscribers for $5.99 a month. This service should start sometime in the middle or end of this month. Coverage should be for all games of all 30 teams.

Instead of sending a text message to somebody asking for the score, you can just tune in to the game. Your mobile phone becomes a handheld radio (this is, after all, a world where an iPod can improve your baseball). Perfect. The boss would ask, "What are you doing on the phone?" I'd say, "I'm calling our researchers about the next article I'm supposed to write." Safe!

Unfortunately, I don't have a Sprint phone. Only those with Sprint PCS Vision or Power VisionSM phones can use the service.

These days, mobile phones are not just mobile phones. They can also be digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs and portable gaming consoles. And the latter may probably be considered as the mobile phone's most well-known feature, as early SMS phones have already been equipped with permutations of two-dimensional games. With the advent of the more popular MMS phones came the three-dimensional Java-enabled games that promises better graphics and gameplay than its "ancient" predecessors.

But "ancient" doesn't necessarily mean less fun. In fact Bandai, a major toy manufacturer and licensing company, brings back old-school nostalgia (16-bit games, anyone?) with its release of mobile phone games reminiscent of the ones in gaming arcades: Double Dragon, Moon Patrol, Bases Loaded and Dark Castle. One may recall that Bases Loaded has been a favorite for hard-core baseball fans and Dark Castle, the number 1 game in Macintosh from 1987-1990 as been credited as the "Mother of the Horror Game genre".

These classic video games promise more hours of enjoyment, as they are loaded with improved graphics and better features, all conveniently tucked in your own mobile phone. Added features include custom character creation for Bases Loaded, more power-ups and attack buggies for Moon Patrol, new attack combinations for Double Dragon, and new areas to discover in Dark Castle.

The availability of these games for mobile phone users may get most classic video game fans pretty excited. Even though it seems that these games are geared to the ahem, the more grown-up audience, hopefully the younger ones will find these games quite fun too.