Perhaps the design ethos of this game can be summed up with the design of Batman himself.

You have a carefully crafted grey bodysuit; a perfectly sculpted Alex Ross inspired cowl with extra long ears; the large, iconic bat symbol spread over a mile-wide chest; tiny details like cuts and scratches that build up as the game progresses. All these strokes of intentional design serve to ground the character into this darker, heightened vision of the Dark Knight. And yet they still gave him the trunks.

Arkham Asylum is a game that knows it's silly, but its also twisted and dark and surprisingly deep gameplay-wise, from its metroidvania structure to its involved combat system to its many, many riddle challenges.

It's a game that is tight and compact, with intimately-decorated environments all stuffed with fun secrets and disturbing details. Its atmosphere is infection, so much so that it demands your immersion, making you feel the rain on your face.

Most of all, however, the game shows just how much the developers loved Batman. It feels like this game was made by people who wanted nothing more than to make the definitive Batman experience and that passion shines through in every moment.

Bringing back Conroy, Hamill and Sorkin from the Animated Series is only the tip of the iceberg, but its emblematic of the studio's respect for the character and his world. Again, only people who truly loved and understood the character would have the balls to put him in black trunks. And of course they fit perfectly, because it's Batman. It's all Batman, the silly and the serious.

This wasn't just the best superhero game of all time when it was released, forever raising people's expectations for the superhero action subgenre, but it was also the start of a seminal series of games that stand toe-to-toe with some of the movies for cultural impact.

The best part of all: the graphics have hardly aged a day. Arkham Asylum's original artstyle is still as striking and evocative as it was in 2009, zany and beautiful and creepy in equal measure.

Even 15 years later, it deserves another visit. But first, did anyone catch the game last night?

The ultimate form of the ultimate kart racing game and perhaps the best party game every made. The driving has been tweaked to perfection, the tracks are crazy and creative and the item balance is perfectly imbalanced, turning every race into barely organised chaos.

It's almost comical to try and explain why Mario Kart is as brilliant as it is. It's almost like trying to describe to a hungry audience why cake tastes good.

It's an ultimately futile endeavour and far less effective than just diving right in. Let them eat cake.

Shovel Knight is the promise nostalgia made to you about the NES era. It takes everything that works from that time in video game design, remixes old ideas with new sensibilities and throws in a shovel load of content for good measure.

And then they did it three more times, each time introducing a new character with their own unique playstyles, levels and even side modes. There's enough here to fill five games and yet somehow they let you get away with just buying one.

Above all else, the Shovel Knight package combines intelligent design, a reverance for its influences and a strong identity of its own together into something that stands triumphant. Shovel Knight is an indie icon and every ounce of that acclaim is deserved.

This game is gleaming with polish, brimming with fun and timeless in its approach. 10 years from now, I'm going to pick this game up again and it will still be as brilliant as the day it was released. Not that I could ever wait that long to play it.