Microsoft’s Mobile Fail

I officially dub this the “Summer of the Smart-Phone.” Google’s Android phones have been releasing at the rate of nearly one per week since May with the new Sprint EVO 4G by HTC and Verizon Droid X by Motorola leading the way. And unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months, you have undoubtedly heard about the new iPhone 4 from Apple. The competition for high end mobile devices is hotter than Houston in August.

Even Rim, the manufacturers of the Blackberry line of smart-phones, has announced several new high end devices. And while Rim still leads the market in shear numbers of phones sold, they are quickly losing ground to the new kids on the block from Google and Apple.

The Palm Pre has had a dismal year because of hardware problems with the early phones, but the recent purchase of Palm by HP means we will probably be seeing new devices based on the WebOS by years end.

What about that other smart phone company? You know, the guys who make the most popular desktop operating system on the planet? The company that generates more money in a day than Apple and Google make in a week? Microsoft has a new phone coming out later this year. They are calling it Windows Phone 7, although it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Windows. It is definitely not Windows 7 on a phone.

Microsoft has sold a lot of smart-phones over the years, and their market share remains much higher than the Android’s. Yet nobody seems to talk about Microsoft when they are comparing phones. The conversation is always comparing the latest Android phone to the newest iPhone.

Microsoft has never quite “gotten it” when it comes to mobile phones. Look at the recent birth (and subsequent death) of the Microsoft Kin. When this phone came out most experts questioned what market it was for. It wasn’t a smart phone in the classic sense of having an App Store and lots of applications. It didn’t run any of the standard mobile device Operating Systems.

Verizon launched the Kin to much fanfare. Ok, well actually it was very little fanfare, and you may have missed it unless you were in the target audience of people in the 15-19 year old range whose parents don’t want them to have a full featured smart-phone. The phone’s market was so small it appears to have dried up within a month. Verizon and Microsoft have already announced they will stop selling the phones this summer.

To be honest, nobody cared. Just like nobody seems to care about Windows Phone 7. With the possible exception of those people who will be writing books and blogs about the next Microsoft smart-phone operating system. Hopefully they will buy each others books.

So where did Microsoft go wrong? Why has this company who controls the desktop PC market been unable to control the smart-phone market. How is it they allowed both Apple and Google to come in and steal all of their thunder?

Their biggest failing is their number one success: Windows. Fundamentally they have treated every new device they lay their hands on as if it is just another Windows platform. In the early days of Windows CE and Windows Mobile it was clear Microsoft believed what people wanted on a small device was Windows. complete with Word, Excel and Outlook.

What Microsoft didn’t see, and I think could not see, was the fact that people don’t use their phones in the same way they use desktop computers. While the smart-phone can be an information content creation device, to most people they are communications devices. Phone, email, text and even browser applications allow people to connect and communicate in a way that does not strap them to the desktop. This is why Twitter, Facebook and Instant Messing apps have become extremely popular on these phones.

Smart phones today also need an application store with third party apps which allow customers to fully customize their mobile experience. This has become so fundamental it has become one of the foundations of any smart-phone.

While Microsoft has already announced and shown many of these features in the new Windows Phone 7 demos, I can’t help think they are more than a day late and a dollar short. Millions of people are already making their decision about the smart-phone they will be using for the next few years. Right now Apple is leading the way, but Google has firmly staked out it’s claim. Yet Microsoft won’t have a phone ready until the end of this year at the earliest. In my opinion that is just to late. By wasting time, resources and credibility on the doomed Kin phone, Microsoft has essentially forfeited the race.

The “Summer of the Smart-Phone” is in full flower. Any company who is not staking their claim to the future of this market is going to have a lot of work to do in order to catch up. And I suspect it won’t be enough to come out with something better. It will have to have a “wow” factor that leaves Steve Jobs panting.

I suspect Windows Phone 7 will not be that phone. I’ve already heard rumors that the first iteration of the phone will be missing many key features (like cut and paste). Taking a step back to redesign the Windows Phone platform may be a good idea, but will it be one more nail in the coffin for a platform that has been deemed irrelevant by many people for the past several years?

I believe it will.

And there is more at stake than smart-phones. Apple threw down a new gauntlet with the iPad earlier this year. Once again they have given birth to a not entirely new market that Microsoft had thought dead. Android slates are already appearing on the market, with an entire quarry of new product announcements coming out every week. I have little doubt that HP has it’s eye on developing it’s own tablet/slate device based on WebOS.

Apple will face stiff competition in both of the markets it can be said to have established: High end smart-phones and tablet devices that allow the user to take the internet with them. Android has taken up the challenge and the consumers will be the winners.

Several years ago with the launch of Windows XP Microsoft used the tag line “Where do you want to go today?” Today we’re all going there, but it seems Microsoft will not be along for the ride.

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Android Apps you must try

I have now had my Sprint EVO 4G for almost three weeks. It is my first Android phone, and I have found a ton of apps that I find make the experience better. In fact I have gotten so used to some of them that I would probably find using the EVO much more difficult without them.

AppBrain -- I'm sending along links to the AppBrain store. If you aren't using AppBrain, I recommend it first. It helps you find apps you might want from your computers web browser and queue them up for installation on the Android when you want to. Go directly to the Android Market on your phone to install it.

Dolphin Browser HD -- The internal browser for Android is pretty good, but this browser adds so much more. Tabbed browsing with up to 8 tabs open at the same time. Gesture controls, which I have never understood until I used gestures on a touch screen. If your phone doesn't have the speed and screen size for this version, get their non-HD browser. My wife was the one who recommended this to me. Credit where credit is due.

Google Maps -- Yes, your phone probably came with Google Maps installed. But did you know there are updates on the App Market that add features and more maps?

BTW, while Google's GPS navigator is still Beta, it is better than the internal GPS navigation on most phones. Because the phone companies GPS needs to download map data as you are driving, if you enter an area with no cell connection you won't get an update even though GPS is working. Google Maps caches the route you are going to take so the maps are there even if there is no Cell tower on the route.

Brightness Toggle Widget -- One way to improve battery life (a big problem on the EVO) is by turning your screen brightness down as much as you can. This widget makes it possible to cycle through the brightness settings without having to find the setting in the Android menus.

No Lock -- Since I work at home, I don't really need the phone to lock every time it goes to sleep. With this widget you can toggle the lock so that when you wake the phone you are on your home page ready to go. No sliding the lock bar to access the phone. Just remember to turn it back on when you are carrying the phone in your pocket.

Google Translate -- Need to translate something on the fly? This app does it amazingly well. You can even speak several languages to the App and it will translate what you say. It can even speak the text back to you in some languages. Kirk and Spock would appreciate this one.

Barcode Scanner -- Who would have thought using your phones camera as a barcode scanner would be useful? But I found you could scan the barcodes on some products around the house, and then find where you can get the best price for that item if you need to buy more. Really handy, but it can be a bit finicky about lighting as it doesn't use the camera's flash LED's.

ASTRO File Manager -- Does what it says, allows you to view your phones file system. You can delete, copy, move, open and even edit most files directly from the SDCard memory. You can even explore the phones root file system, although you need to have root privileges to really cause trouble.

Remember to check out the ASTRO SMB Module which allows you to connect over your WiFi to another computer and copy files to from your Android. Take that iPhone.

Dropbox -- If you are ok with storing data in the cloud, I highly recommend an account on Dropbox. It allows you to have a folder that is shared with any device on the Internet, or you can upload and download files to it via a web browser. This app allows you to access your Dropbox from anywhere on your Android.

Not Call Log -- Ok, this one is a bit hard to explain. If you have HTC Sense when you make a phone call, at the end of the call you are left in the Call Log. There it is easy to accidentally touch a phone number and start another call. With this app installed, whenever a call ends, you will be taken back to the screen of your choice. It saves accidentally dialing people. Dunno if it is the same for MotoBlur devices or Nexus.

TiVoRemote -- Ok, this is convergence of technology. If you have a Series 3 or later TiVo, you can set it up to allow remote control over the network. With this App you can use your Android to remote control your TiVo from anywhere inside the WiFi network. It is the only app here that I recommend that is not free. But at $0.99 I was very happy to have it, although it seems to lag at times.

Swype (Beta) -- Last but not at all least is this great keyboard replacement for the Android soft keyboard. It is nearly impossible to describe how effective Swype is. With it I can type at nearly an order of magnitude faster on my EVO than I could with the normal tap-tap-tap action. With Swype, you literally swipe your finger over the keys for a word and it does the rest. It has to be used to believe it.

I understand Swype is a standard feature of some Droids. The company is offering a limited time beta sign up so I recommend you see about getting it if you can, even if you decide not to use it. They claim that the beta will not end anytime soon. They want people to test the software on a wide range of Android devices. So hopefully that means if the beta ever does end, we will be able to purchase it.

Hope I didn't bore anyone. Let me know what you are using!

The Privacy Illusion

There has been a lot of “sound and fury” about Facebook's privacy policies lately. The big issue seems to be that people believe Facebook has moved from being a place where they can communicate with a close circle of friends to being a public forum where everything they say can be seen by anyone.

The truth, of course, is somewhere in between. Faced by competition for the social network space by services like Twitter, Facebook has been searching for ways to give advertisers and marketers better ways to communicate with their customers. This has been an ongoing evolution of the Internet since it was opened up to commercialization back in the 90’s.

But it seems to me that the real problem is not Facebook. It is the public perception that you can have privacy on the Internet. By now it should be clear that anything you do or say on the Web is no more private than something you say in a crowded shopping mall.

Most people don’t realize that even their email isn’t really private. Especially if you use a web mail host like Gmail or Hotmail. Electronic mail is sent from server to server over the internet with little to no security. A dedicated hacker or a malevolent network administrator can learn more about your private life than any marketing manager on Facebook.

Of course, there are tools to help solve this problem. Email encryption tools have been available from the earliest days of the Internet, but they aren’t used by many people because they aren’t aware of them and frankly most of them are complicated to set up. But if people were really interested in protecting their privacy they would install these tools on every email client they use.

The issue is that while people wring their hands about privacy, they rarely do more than complain. The truth is most of us have very little understanding of the real issues. If we did we would use the simplest tool available for privacy: If you don’t want people to know something, don’t say it.

So the best advice is to treat Facebook like you would any other public place. Post whatever you want, as long as you are willing to accept the consequences of lots more people seeing it than your friends list.

The week Google killed Apple

Ok that's hyperbole but if Google ends up supplanting Apple in the mobile market, this will be the week we can say it happened.

During Google IO this week, Google showed developers the new Android 2.2 features, including such things as:

• Install an App from the web without using the Android Marketplace. In other words, you don't have to wait for an App to go to the App Store to release a patch.
• Copy all (non-DRM) music directly from your computer to the Android, over the net without plugging it in to your computer.
• Translate voice to voice (English to French for instance) on the phone. For instance, speak a phrase into the phone in English and hear the translation spoken back in French.
• Run Apps from the SD card, freeing up more memory for Apps.

Of course Android already has multi-tasking and it’s open source nature allows developers to write and publish software for the Android phones without having to go through the approval process that encumbers all iPhone Apps.

That may or may not be exciting, but during the first Keynote on Wednesday Google gave every developer that attended an Android phone. During the Thursday keynote Google gave every developer that attended an HTC EVO, the new Android phone that will make use of Sprints new 4G speeds.

Has Apple ever done that? No, and they aren’t likely to.

Android phones outsold iPhone for the first time over the last Quarter. Google is making it very clear they are planning on taking over the mobile device market. They also made it clear this week they want the developers to come along and profit from the market opportunity with Google.

Rather than treating developers as problem children that have to be monitored closely, Google is inviting the developers to become partners on their Android platform. The problem is that Apple has already outlined the iPhone 4.0 features and it is well into Beta testing. Google has chosen the perfect moment to strike. I believe in the future when we hear that Android has overtaken iPhone for market share, this will be the week we remember seeing the tides shift.

Star Trek Online, Preview

Khaaaannn!

The open Beta for Cryptics new Star Trek Online (henceforth STO) MMO has finished with a massive Borg Invasion. As an action loving Andorian captain I was looking forward to the final battle. Sadly I was informed by Star Fleet that I would be in charge of the defense of Risa.

However, it gave me the time to collect my thoughts about the new game, and convey them to those of you who might be considering a stint as an officer in the fleet. So I figured I’d give you the run down on how we roll in Star Fleet, with advice that should help you decide if the game is for you.

The Story So Far

The story is set in the canonical Star Trek universe. That means that the events of the recent J.J. Abrams 2009 Star Trek movie are not in play. Actually the events of the movie have taken place, but in the STO universe Spock and Nero disappeared into the singularity created by the Red Matter and Spock is presumed dead by the Federation.

The setting is 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. The STO website has a number of articles explaining the events which occurred after the death of Praetor Shinzon. In summary:

• Romulus was destroyed by the Hobus Supernova, billions of Romulans were killed
• As a result, the Romulans are in a state of disarray
• The Remans have splintered and formed their own government. More or less as Shinzon had wanted
• Most of the surviving Romulans have gone into diaspora and a massive fleet was reported heading coreward (towards the center of the galaxy.)
• The Cardassian homeworld was devastated by the end of the war with the Dominion, and they have been rebuilding with the help of the Federation
• The Klingon Empire has decided to take advantage of the resulting power shifts and begun absorbing nearby factions.
• The Gorn, Naussicans and Orion Syndicate are now satellites of the Klingon Empire.
• Not all Klingons want war with the Federation, but it is unclear how that will play out.

Yes, that is the short version. But hey, it is thirty years.

Picking Sides (But Not Really)

You might expect that the game of Star Trek Online is one of factions between the United Federation of Planets, and the Klingon Empire. In fact that is true, but don’t expect to start playing that way. In fact you cannot create a Klingon character until you have first gotten past fifth level as a Federation player. In other words, you must start a Federation player no matter where your allegiance may lie.

A big reason for this is that the Klingon faction is almost entirely about PvP. From what I hear the Klingon faction is entirely PvP as there is virtually no PvE content for them. There has been a great deal of debate on the wisdom of that decision, but it is how things are in STO.

Picking Your Species

Ok, so you must start as Federation. That means you will have nearly a dozen different alien species to choose from. Including Human, Andorian, Bolian, Trill, Vulcan and Bajoran to name a few. There are some racial bonus’s for each species, but the choice is almost entirely one of taste for the player.

There is also an option to create your own Race, which gives you an enormous number of physical characteristics to choose from. If you’ve played Cryptics City of Heroes/Villains or Champions Online you will be familiar with the almost overwhelming character customization options.

Once you’ve chosen your species and created your character you will get to run through the games tutorial mission which will familiarize you with the mechanics of movement and combat (both on the ground and in space). Unfortunately there is only one Tutorial mission, and the different species all share the same opening to the game. I won’t spoil the story for those who are interested in playing the game.

Your Orders, Captain?

You play a Star Fleet captain, but you start as an Ensign. Note that in the same tradition as most of the world’s navies, the commander of a ship is called “Captain” no matter what his/her rank. The leveling system works by grades and ranks. To start there are ten grades per rank, and five ranks. You start as an Ensign, but in the thick of battle you quickly get your own ship to command and are promoted to Lieutenant grade 1. At Lieutenant Grade 11 you will be promoted to Lieutenant Commander grade 1. And so it goes. Lt., Lt. Commander, Commander, Captain, Admiral for a total of 50 grades or levels.

But STO is a skill based game rather than level based. As such you get Skill points for completing missions, defeating opponents and performing some other tasks. As you gain skills, you can pick attributes to improve. Such as engineering skills to help your ship repairs, or tactical leader for ground combat skills. There are a host of skills to use, and each Rank has new skills that open up.

You cannot be promoted until you spend a certain number of skill points. So gaining Grades comes from getting skill points, but gaining a new Rank comes from actually spending the points. This means you can’t simply horde skill points to use at a later Rank.

Your Ship, Captain!

STO is made up of two distinctly different tactical games: Ground combat/missions and Space combat/missions.

Ground missions are easy to understand. Your character runs around, interacting with NPC’s and occasionally doing battle with ground based NPC’s. Phasers, disruptors, tricorders and various other familiar tools are at your disposal. In addition to yourself, you can form a landing party from members of your Bridge crew and/or other players. This is one of the interesting parts of STO. Over the course of your career you will get to bring on board NPC characters as Bridge Officers (BOs). These come in three varieties: Engineers, Science and Tactical Officers. Each has its own special skills which you can use.

When you form a landing party you may choose up to three other characters to accompany you for a total party of four. Those other three can be your NPC Bridge Officers and/or players from other ships. If you have insufficient officers for a Landing party, you may fill the spots with security personnel (aka, red shirts).

For the most part the NPC’s act independently and will help you appropriately. Science officers can heal party members, or debuff the opponents. Engineers can build phaser turrets, shield generators, etc. Tactical officers can improve your teams offensive capabilities as well as dealing out greater damage. You can also issue direct orders to one, some or all of the NPC’s to get the job done. Unlike pets in other MMOs, Bridge Officers can take and deal out damage just as well as the Player can. They are very effective party members and can make or break missions.

Red Alert! All Hands to Battle Stations!

Space combat is where STO differs from just about any other MMO you may have played. And it is a big part of the game. In space you have to think moderately 3D. While ships cannot perform full 360 degree loops or any kind of Roll maneuver, there is still a lot to think about while taking on opposing fleets. And you are the captain of one ship.

As opposed to ground missions where you can take a landing party you have only one ship to take on any number of opposing ships. Your bridge crew will be available as special powers or skills which can be called upon to reinforce shields, improve torpedo damage or run for cover when you need it. Selecting the right bridge crew members and skills can be an important part of Space combat.

Space combat can get frantic, and victory often goes to the captain who can keep a lot of balls in the air at once. You need to concentrate on applying fire to the enemy where he is weakest. At the same time you need to monitor your own shields to make sure you don’t come up short. And on top of that your weapons each have specific firing arcs, so you need to orient yourself to keep maximum firepower on the opponent. It sounds tougher than it is, as the interface provides plenty of feedback and several easy ways to do everything.

Still, if there is any one part of the game that will weed out the people who like the game from those who don’t, it is space combat. For many people the complexity of 3D combat will prove to be more than they want to take on for entertainment. The good news is that a typical battle can take several minutes, and it is rare that a single mistake will mean defeat.

But This Is The Fleet

On the other hand, you can and will have situations where other players can help you with space combat. Several ships can form a squadron, and some special encounters will require fleets of many ships. STO makes this easy by auto grouping people in some situations to make sure the missions are at least doable. It’s actually pretty seamless and I never felt like I was being forced to play with others even in those situations where that did happen. I spent most of my time soloing, but really appreciated entering a zone and finding others who I was auto-teamed with on the same mission. You can turn off the “auto-teaming” feature, but I recommend giving it a try if you play.

All players start off with a basic frigate for their ship. It is light, moderately fast and deals a fair amount of damage. It has limited crew stations and room for only one rear and two forward firing weapons. After gaining the Lt. Commander rank you can start picking specialized vessels. The first set breaks into three types: Cruisers are essentially tanks dealing less damage but able to take heavy punishment and keep flying. Escorts are smaller and faster ships which can deal lots of damage, but take less themselves. Think of the Escort as the DPS of the trio. Science Vessels are intended as support ships. They can extend their shields to help protect other ships in their party for instance.

Shore Leave

STO is not all combat and missions. There are a number of Spacedocks and some planets at which you can rest, refit and even acquire upgrades to your ship as you level. Many missions start out at Spacedocks, and you can find other players to group up with if you are into that. Some familiar places are available: Earth Spacedock, Deep Space 9, K7 on the Klingon border and the R&R hotspot of Risa.

Some locations are not open for players. Earth being the most notable. There is no way to beam down to the human homeworld. Other locations serve different purposes. The Federation research and development center on Memory Alpha is where players go to barter collectible items found around the galaxy for upgrades and new equipment. Only a portion of this system was available during Beta, and most agreed it is no substitute for crafting systems available in other MMOs.

Beam Me Up

This is a preview, and I wont’ give STO a final grade until I’ve had a chance to play the finished product for awhile. What I did like was the real look feel and sounds of the future universe as imagined by Gene Roddenberry and his faithful followers.

There aren’t any really big “aha” moments in the game, but there are lots of little moments that make you feel like you are in that universe. For instance, the first time you fire a photon torpedo and hear that very recognizable echoing FOOM, you will know where you are. Transporters, phasers, warp nacelles and even Tribbles will make the Trekkies and Trekkers very comfortable.

What is missing is hard to know until the complete game is available. There are some places where you stop and say “Ok, this was contrived to make the game more playable.” However, I am a fan of playability, and while some of those moments may lower the emersion it doesn’t break the fun factor for me. I didn’t participate in any PvP combat, and probably won’t when the game goes live either.

As an avid MMO player who watched the original Star Trek series before they were re-runs I’ve been anticipating this game for a long long time. So I will be playing it.

Oh, and if you decide to join me, no need to ask which server I am on. Like Champions Online, there is only one server. Although each “zone” has many instances (or shards) to ease the load, it is still very easy to get together with friends.

Don’t hesitate to contact me via sub-space communications if you have specific questions. Or just send me an email.

Life in the Borderlands

Waiting for Diablo III? Need an action RPG fix that allows you to play with a few of your friends?

Looking for some First Person Shooter (FPS) action, but would like something you can play with your friends instead of against them?

Look no further than the Borderlands. This game combines the squad based FPS tactics of Call of Duty or Rainbow Six type games with action RPG of the Diablo Games with a heavy dose of Fallout 3 for flavor. If that sounds like a strange combination how about this: the game’s setting is a clear combination of Mad Max meets Firefly. The alien landscape looks eerily similar to the Australian outback. As if that wasn’t enough you run into characters like Mad Mel (aka Mel Gibson as ‘Mad Max’) and Bruce McClane (Bruce Willis as Officer John McClane from ‘Die Hard’). The developers clearly understand they are crossing a lot of genre boundaries and they do a magnificent job of it. Easter eggs abound for the Action/Sci-Fi fans who want to look.

But the real treat here is the game play. The game opens up with you being dropped off the bus at a rustic little town with a bandit problem. You are thrown directly into the action and you pick your character type and name as you go through the game introduction. And the action if plentiful. This is First Person Shooting top to bottom, no matter which of the four character classes you choose you get a gun to start out. But this isn’t a Quake/Unreal Tournament style shooter. There is a premium on solid tactics. Running straight into the bad guys with guns blazing will just get you thrown back to the last save point in the game. You quickly learn to approach with caution, use the long range weapons when you can, find cover and figure out the enemies weaknesses wherever you can.

If you are lucky enough to play with a friend or three (four player are the max) you get a real treat. A knowledge of basic squad tactics will allow you to succeed, which is important because the game difficulty ratchets up a bunch in multiplayer mode. Find a place to lay suppressing fire and find who is good at flanking the enemy. In some cases, this is the only way to get through in multiplayer as some creatures are virtually impossible to kill head on. Having friends who understand this is key, and good communications will help in that regard. There is no in game voice on the PC, so I highly recommend a voice connection before starting to play.

All of that, and a pretty good story line. Nothing very original (find the keys to the “Vault”), but there are numerous quests and lots of scenery to see along the way. And a whole lot of laugh out loud humor that keeps you coming back again and again.

A word of warning for the timid or parents: this is a fairly mature game, there is a lot of immature language (who would call that adult language?) There is a lot of gore in the game as well, and no way to turn it off that I can find. Then again, I didn’t look very hard for a way.

It’s also good to know that this isn’t a “twitch” type of game. While the action can get very hectic, there is almost always a way to retreat when it gets too heavy and find a different approach to the problem. Again, smart tactics will beat heavy hitting at every turn.

Given the big competition in games this season, Borderlands my be overlooked by a lot of gamers. That would be a shame, because for those who play it, they will remember the experience for a long time.

Borderlands Gameplay Video at Youtube.

Batman’s Arkham story is Best game of 2009 (so far)

Ok, with the Holiday season coming up it is obviously too early to call any game the best of 2009. None the less it has been a pretty good year for gaming so far so I thought I’d put in my two cents for the best game I’ve seen so far. I’d even go so far as to say that when the year ends, this is likely to still be the best of 2009.

For my money Batman: Arkham Asylum (B:AA) is the winner so far, hands down. The game breathes life into one of the most recognizable comic book heroes and goes so much further than any super hero game to date.

It’s probably safe to say that most people who are not familiar with the Batman universe have little or no knowledge of what Arkham Asylum is. And those that know it is a mental hospital for the criminally insane of Gotham City may not fully appreciate what that means. As the place where most of Batman’s biggest foes (Joker, Bane, Two-Face, etc.) end up, Arkham has come to represent a virtual purgatory in the DCU. So it comes as no surprise that having Batman spend a night in Arkham is at the bottom to some of the darkest stories in his history.

Which is precisely the story behind B:AA. As the game starts up we find Batman doing what he does so often, returning Joker to Arkham after another breakout and crime spree by the Clown Prince of Crime. But this time Batman is unhappy. Well, Batman is never really happy, but putting Joker away is usually where the story ends. In this case we find that the Joker has given himself up almost without a fight, and that sounds alarm bells for Batman’s always suspicious mind. And sure enough, it turns out Joker is looking forward to his “home-coming.” Arrangements have been made. A fire at Blackgate penitentiary has made it necessary to move many of the prisoners there to Arkham temporarily. Many of them are Joker’s henchmen, adding to the suspicious nature of Joker’s return.

During the course of the game you will be introduced (or re-introduced if you are familiar with the Batman stories) with many of his most familiar foes. What makes B:AA the best Super Hero game ever is the way you get to experience what it is to be the Bat. At your disposal will be nearly all of “those magnificent toys” the Joker is always going on about. Use the Grappling gun to swing up to a roof top, or hide out in the rafters to listen in to the bad guys conversations to gather intelligence. Switch to Detective mode to find clues about what is going on. You can fight the bad guys head on, or you can sneak up behind them for the classic silent take down. Rarely are you constrained to one tactic in the game.

The fight system in the game is simply spectacular. While most of your attacks are initiated by a simple button press, the fight moves are elegant and varied. Each fight looks like it is being choreographed for a movie, but each fight can go in completely different ways no matter how many times you replay a scenario. It’s the kind of attention to detail that shows that the creators really know and love the Batman mythos.

Which isn’t a surprise either. After all, the game was produced by some of the same artists who worked on many of the movies and animated creations for TV. Writer/director Paul Dini (Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, etc) wrote the story for B:AA, and his humor and love of the characters shows in every line. Even better, the voices that people are so familiar with from the Animated series are here as well: Kevin Conroy (Batman the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, etc.) reprises the voice of Batman and Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Big Red One, Batman the Animated Series, etc.) does the voice of the Joker. In fact, I think Hamill’s manic Joker voice acting may be the best Joker on film period.

But this isn’t the Saturday morning cartoon series. This is a darker, more adult and much much grittier Batman. This is a a younger version of the Batman from Frank Miller’s 1986 The Dark Knight Returns graphics novel. Graphically this is an amazing game and I mean that knowing how great today’s games can look. This is the best of the year. From Batman’s Kevlar weave batsuit to the foreboding and haunting Arkham Island, the game developers obviously spent thousands of hours bringing the Batman universe to life.

Just as Bioshock surprised me with it’s rich visuals, deep deep story line and snappy game play a year ago, Batman: Arkham Asylum has raised the Super hero gaming genre to a new height. I hope they plan on giving us a sequel. Certainly they have only dipped their toes into the massive world of Batman, with over 70 years of source material to use for more stories. I’ve yet to play this game through completely. I keep restarting it to re-experience various parts, and because I don’t really want it to end. It’s that good. I can’t imagine another game releasing this year that would cause me to change my vote for best of 2009, but I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds.