With the surprise announcement of Arkham Asylum 2 at last night's Spike TV Video Game Awards show, we at Destructoid couldn't help but tremble with excitement, many of us doing so while wearing official Batman pajama pants (and by "many of us," I mean "me and only me").

It almost goes without saying that Arkham Asylum was a triumph not just for comic book games, but for the stealth-action genre in general; it proved that stealth doesn't have to be slow-paced and needlessly punishing, while -- for the most part -- showing a respect to the Batman mythos that made even the Batman-pajama-pant-wearing crowd blush in nerd inferiority.

What of the sequel, then? What do we want to see out of Arkham Asylum 2, and what do we want to see fixed from the first game? The following requests are as fanboyish as they are pretentious (far as we know, our ideas could be really, really bad), but it stands to be said: we loved the first game, and the sequel announcement has gotten us in an excited, list-writing sort of mood.

Hit the jump to see our Arkham Asylum 2 wishlist.

Guybrush Threepwood is dead; long live Guybrush Threepwood. Thrown into the underworld and seemingly powerless to stop the forces of piratey evil , the fifth Tales of Monkey Island chapter, entitled Rise of the Pirate God, sees our bumbling hero tasked with sealing a rift in time and space, saving his beloved Elaine, and defeating an all-too-familiar evil.

But is it any good?

Telltale season finales have been somewhat unpredictable, historically speaking. Sam and Max's second season had a pretty good ending, as did Wallace and Gromit, but the Strong Bad finale was undeniably subpar, and even Sam and Max's season two finale couldn't match the brilliance of its penultimate episode.

Where does Tales of Monkey Island fall on this scale? Does it bring all the series' unanswered questions to a satisfying close, or does Guybrush Threepwood's latest adventure end with a disappointing thud?

You'll have to hit the jump to find out (mild spoilers for the entire series).

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. They do a (semi) weekly podcast.

This week's HAWPcast starts off like your typical nostalgia trip -- Ash used to participate in forum-based roleplaying, har har har -- before turning into a more specific discussion about "hangout" games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, which then somehow turns into a discussion about Left 4 Dead 2, which then turns into a discussion about nonlinear story delivery.

You can listen to this week's episode here, or subscribe to the show on iTunes.

If you want to read the Resetti article we reference about halfway through, you can do so here.

Podtoid is Destructoid.com's official gaming news and discussion podcast. Actually, right now it's our only podcast, so I could probably just omit the "gaming news and discussion" bit.

On this week's Podtoid, the regular cast (minus Linde) discussed Medal of Honor, the temporary banning of javelin glitch users in Modern Warfare 2, and pretty much whatever Brad Nicholson could randomly scream to halt Samit's train of thought.

Also, Samit says something racist, and then says he's never played Portal. We spend the rest of the podcast trying to decide which is worse.

You can listen to the show here or subscribe to us on iTunes.

Every week, sort of, features editor Anthony Burch discusses games and gamer culture in his "Rev Rant" video series.  You can watch the previous rants here.

Firstly: spoilers for BioShock, Modern Warfare 2, and Portal. Though if you honestly haven't played Portal by this point, you are weird.

Secondly: this week's rant is about how games which are supposedly about control and slavery and experiencing a lack of free will effectively fall into two categories: those that require some subtle doublethink on the part of the player, but are still immensely satisfying (BioShock, Portal) and those that are thematically lazy and hide that laziness through BS statements about free will (Haze, Modern Warfare 2).

The two indie games I briefly mention in the rant are Judith and Edmund. I harbor an intense desire to see a crossover game including both protagonists. It would be called "Judith n' Edmund," and it would be an existential buddy cop game.

I'd usually try to halfheartedly summarize what we're going to be talking about for tonight's Podtoid, but Samit already did that for me in a (previously) private email:

• Modern Warfare 2 "Javelin glitch," and the fact that MS is banning for using it while Sony isn't
• Medal of Honor reboot due out in 2010
  
• John Riccitiello's wide-ranging comments in interviews last week: a possible Mirror's Edge 2 and innovating within an established IP; a possible sequel to The Saboteur; other crap I can't remember right now
• Take-Two's bad financial call: blaming poor performance of baseball games; can't turn a profit in years where no new GTA game comes out; expecting to lose money in 2010, even with a bunch of high-profile sequels (Mafia II, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock 2, Max Payne 3 [which has been delayed to Q4 2010]); Borderlands to become a franchise (registration of Borderworlds trademark)
• whatever Anthony wanted to talk about but hasn't been able to remember yet

Long story short: Samit is much more organized and prepared than I am (I never did remember what I wanted to talk about). We still need listener questions, though, so hit the jump and start asking them.

This is a review for a game called Zombie Driver.

The game is about running zombies over in a car and killing them with weapons attached to said car.

The review will tell you, in my opinion, whether or not the act of running over and killing zombies with a car is an entertaining as it should be.

If you need to know more than that in order to hit the jump and read the review, you obviously did not notice that the name of the game is Zombie Driver.

A little while ago, a conversation on Far Cry 2 creative director Clint Hocking's blog led to a small experiment amongst the die-hard fans of the game. Manveer Heir argued that ethical choices are meaningless unless those choices are irreversible and backed up by permanent consequence: Clint Hocking argued that such a philosophy is one more applicable for linear narrative, and doesn't take into account the game-specific mechanics of restarting and trying again.

Eventually, this snowballed into an experiment revolving around Hocking's game: how would the player-enforced concept of permanent death change the experience of playing Far Cry 2? What if instead of restarting from your last save file upon death, you simply deleted your savegame and had to accept that your death represented the end of your story?

Though Ben Abraham isn't the only blogger to chronicle his attempt at a permadeath Far Cry 2 run, he's certainly presented his story in a more polished and entertaining format than many others I've read. His story, "Permanent Consequence," is now available for download as a PDF (don't get scared by the pagecount: each slide only holds one or two sentences). Though it focuses more on the experience of creating a story and identifying with one's avatar than it does the actual strategies that a FC2 veteran would need to undertake in order to survive a permadeath playthrough (Abraham forces himself to pretend he doesn't know the endgame twist, for instance) it's still a remarkably interesting read.

And a surprisingly well-timed one, as well: I just completed my first successful no-death playthrough of FC2, and it may have been one of the most meaningful experiences I've ever had in a game. I highly recommend trying it out.

Pixeljam Games -- not be confused with PixelJunk -- have just released their newest game on Adult Swim's Web site. It's called Mountain Maniac, and it's probably their best game since Gamma Bros.

The premise is as simple as it is ludicrous: you're an angry mountain man who decides to vent his anger by crushing an otherwise-quiet hillside village with boulders. The boulders control sort of like Pachinko balls, except you can adjust their trajectory from time to time. The boulders are also notably unlike Pachinko balls in that they destroy everything they come into contact with, leading to some satisfying destruction combos (think of a boulder hitting a goat hitting a biplane hitting a cop car, and then all of them hitting a gas station) if you get a really good run going.

The town-smashing is elegantly broken up with short, surprisingly entertaining combat sections that task your mountain man with fighting off park rangers, SWAT team members, and, eventually jet bombers. Check it out here, and be sure to watch out for the goddamn Yetis.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a pretty fun game on its own. What's even cooler about it, however, is that its rules are flexible enough to allow for multiple methods of play: in the same way that Far Cry 2 lends itself to permadeath runthroughs and Ikaruga allows for dot-eating as a strategy, so too does Left 4 Dead 2 allow for...

...Well, this.

I dunno if anyone will seriously try to play the game in the way Ash and I suggest in this week's episode, but it could be interesting to find out. If nothing else, I can now claim that I have designed or co-designed three different games, even though one is only sort-of a game and "Left 4 Friendz" is only a reworking of the rules of an existing game and I don't actually know if it's any fun or not but you shut the hell up, because I've designed three games.

If you like the video, you might also consider listening to our podcast or getting our DVD. We've got shirts, too.

Christmas is just around the corner. That's all I'm saying.

Every week, sort of, features editor Anthony Burch discusses games and gamer culture in his "Rev Rant" video series.

There are two groups of gamers: those who don't care whether games are ever recognized as a legitimate art form by the mainstream media, and those who do.

I belong to the latter group, and, in the above video, I try to explain why. Maybe you'll agree with it, maybe you won't. What can you do, right?

You can go here to read a synopsis of the Chris Hecker speech I mention at the start of the video.

This week's Podtoid is a pretty long one. Just be ready for that. The regular cast, minus Linde (save for the last ten minutes) talked about everything from Assassin's Creed 2, to Lego Rock Band, to which of the Star Wars movies are the best.

We also have the same conversation about the Darkman trilogy, believe it or not.

You can listen to the show here or subscribe to us on iTunes.

It's been so damn long since I've actually hosted an episode of Podtoid, I forgot what frigging time we start. Hence the late post.

But anyway, yeah: the regular cast will discuss Assassin's Creed II, the newly announced Prince of Persia game, and pretty much whatever questions managed to get asked between now and the time we record.

Which isn't very long.

So start asking.

Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.

Far Cry 2. Assassin's Creed. Mirror's Edge. Depending on your tolerance for self-important cut scenes, Metal Gear Solid 4. These are games which, to many gamers, cannot simply be dismissed as "good" or "bad." Cannot be easily explained with a numerical score and a Metacritic aggregation. Games which show us the potential of their core design concepts, while kinda-sorta failing to deliver on them in the way they they really oughtta.

Games such as these are the subject of this month's Musing theme. Which games do you find yourself loving despite (or because of) their flaws? Which games do you desperately wish to adore, but simply cannot because of some seemingly minor aspect of the game's design? What do these accumulated flaws and strengths say to you? What do these love/hate games need to fix in order to reach their true potential?

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme and instructions on how you can get your writing posted on the Dtoid front page.