When it's your turn to bat, you've got two options for swinging the lumber--touch, in which you tap the screen, and slide, in which you move a slider back and forth to swing the bat. In both cases, you're timing your swing to make contact with the ball as it hits the strike zone. I found touch to be the better control scheme, but both are easy enough to master, if not exactly engaging. In addition to swinging away, you can also make your batters bunt; will be delighted to know that bunting is as unproductive a strategy in Real Baseball as it is in real-life.

Pitching is an entirely different matter; in fact, it's the one area where Real Baseball truly shines. Your pitcher has a choice of throwing four different kinds of pitches--a fastball, a cut fastball, curve, slider, slurve, and so on. (The arsenal of pitches varies from pitcher to pitcher, in a nice nod to realism.) Once you select which pitch to throw, you tilt your iPhone to position where you'd like to throw the ball--inside, outside, high, or low. You can even position the pitch to be well out of the strike zone, as I discovered when I made my pitcher plunk Derek Jeter's virtual doppelganger with a fastball aimed squarely at his elbow. ("That was for the 2001 divisional series!" I may or may not have screamed, frightening passersby.)

With location and pitch now selected, you then have to tap to determine your pitch's speed and accuracy. Perfectly position your pitch at the right speed, and you're as unhittable as Sandy Koufax was in his prime. I really appreciated how Real Baseball takes advantage of the iPhone's accelerometer for aiming your pitch, and I was impressed by how you could use an inside fastball to set the batter up to flail away at a change-up on the subsequent pitch. It really approximates the strategy that goes into an actual baseball game.

Fielding and base-running don't fare nearly as well. Controlling fielders has been the bane of many a baseball video game, and the problems become especially complex on a mobile device. Gameloft tries to deal with the issue by taking control of your fielders--all you have to do is pick which base they throw to. It makes the game a little dull, actually, as you're reduced to the role of spectator when your fielders chase after a ball.

Here, again, Real Baseball fails to live up to its name--you can hit a solid single to the outfield, and the right fielder is still able to throw you out at first base. Your opponent can smash a ball off the wall in the deepest part of the ballpark, and you're able to hold the batter to a single--assuming that the computer doesn't send the runner to second. Often times, it does, and you're able to turn a base hit into an easy out. I've had innings where my pitcher has been battered from pillar to post, only to record three quick outs after my not-so-intelligent computerized opponent makes foolish outs on the basepaths.