20. Houkaimura (Peposoft) [Windows, freeware]

Houkaimura (Breaking Town) is an action platformer that plays similarly to the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, where you have to guide an eggplant-headed character through eight levels packed with enemies, traps and boss encounters. There are a large selection of weapons that you can find and collect, although players are limited to the use of just one type of weapon at any time.

19. The Soul of Dracula (bunaguchi) [Windows, freeware]

The Soul of Dracula is a 2D platformer inspired by the Castlevania series, featuring appearances from mainstays such as Death and the Count himself in the role of level bosses. You play as a vampire hunter who must venture into the Dark Prince’s castle and defeat him using only your whip and the familiar array of ranged weapons at your disposal.

Though many of the enemies had appeared in monsieur Belmont’s adventures before, the developer of this tribute project had included a couple of twists and surprises that will please even the most hardcore of Castlevania fans out there.

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It may be predictable but it is deserving. NBA 2K11 comes out on top of the best sports games of 2011 countdown having delivered on a complete experience and advancing the series from the premiere basketball title to a place in the cultural mainstream.

The ranking of games in the best of 2010 list is based on the personal amount of enjoyment had with a particular title, whether advertised features were fully delivered on, post-release support, community interaction and communication, overall gameplay experience, feature set, and online play performance. Again this is largely a personal take on the games and not a recap of those with the highest scores on Metacritic. The analysis is weighted heavily towards those which I had the most fun with while considering them as a whole and compared relatively to the field.

(Related: Hits and Misses - Tops October Sales – Tony Parker Punished – Patch Details – NBA Today Impressions – Online Impressions – Creating a Legend Impressions – Social Presence)

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[From now until mid-January, IndieGames.com: The Weblog will be counting down the best independent and freeware games of 2010, with descriptions, screenshots, and links of the best games in each major category. Previously: Top 10 Experimental Games, Top 10 Shoot 'em Ups, Top 10 Role-Playing Games, Top 10 Freeware Puzzlers, Top 10 Freeware Adventure Games, Top 10 Browser Arcade Games, Top Freeware Arcade Games 2010]

The eighth of our in-depth 2010 Best Of Features here on the IndieGames.com blog (after the overall Top 10 we did for Gamasutra and the 10 Indie Games for ’11 article), we’re proud to present ten of the best Flash-based platformers released in 2010.

Super Meat Boy helped usher in the renaissance of indie games in 2010, and it’s no surprise that 2D platformers make up a large percentage of browser games available to play on casual game portals as well. Here’s our guide to some of the more notable run ‘n jump games that you shouldn’t be missing out on.

Here are the top browser platformers of the year:

What’s Platform Nation?

Platform Nation is a collaboration of several gaming podcasts who decided it would be best for our gamers, the podcasters and the rest of the gaming community if they came together to share efforts. Together we have a larger voice in the community for the gamers that we strive to speak for. We share the same forums and for the most part, share the same listeners. After all, we are a community, not a network Platform Nation, United We Game.

The Game Maker Blog has posted up its yearly 100 Game Maker Games in 10 Minutes video, showcasing 100 of the best indie titles made with Game Maker last year.

Plenty of the games on show were featured here on IndieGames, including the likes of Super Crate Box, Desktop Dungeons and Hydorah – in fact, around 40 of them, if my rough counting is anything to go by.

Make sure you head over to the Game Maker Blog for a full rundown of every game on display.

Game soundtrack albums offer us an opportunity to examine in depth the added emotional nuance that music scores lend to our games. In 2010 high profile releases included albums for Bit.Trip Core/Runner/Void/Fate, Flower, The Path, Penumbra, and Zeno Clash. For those adventurous enough to make a purchase based on brief samples or personal experience with the game, each item is worth investigating.

A trend more visible in recent months has been the use of online services for distributing music without cost to the developer. Bandcamp proved to be a particularly game-friendly platform, with both Plants vs Zombies and Super Meat Boy albums claiming top spots on online sales charts, together with Disasterpeace’s chiptune vision quest Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar. The convenience of SoundCloud made it a popular option in 2010 for sharing videogame tracks, Pause Music offered intriguing low-fi scores alongside their chip music EPs, and OverClocked ReMix threw their hat into the soundtrack album ring.

Below are the albums of 2010 that resonated most with me, listed alphabetically. Appended are suggestions for further listening, all of which is either downloadable or streaming online for free in its entirety.