15 Best Gaming OSTs I've Encountered

[Hobonicus]

Interesting post, I agreed with some, disagreed with others. All were definitely quality though.

Have you played Crysis? It had an awesome soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmLYOqrYgHU

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spoiler: I like the old Doom music, especially "Sign of Evil".

Spoiler: The original C&C had some great stuff as well.

Spoiler: And the Blade Kitten music wan't bad either

[small]Admittedly, the last two are added in part to counter the effects of going through youtube, trying to find the best Chzo music...TN and 6DAS had some seriously disturbing tunes[/small]

 

[random_bars]

I'd put anything by Peter McConnell on this list. He's done all the music for Double Fine games, and even Tim Schafer's previous games at Lucas Arts... To give us stuff like this:

 

[putowtin]

Assassin' Creed II the entire soundtrack, this is a beautiful soundtrack that effortlessly switches between touching pieces to full blown action pieces.

 

[OverlordSteve]

I will just go ahead and say anything by Shoji Meguro, because he's awesome.

For example, this is the regular battle theme from Digital Devil Saga:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVCPSFvNlsY
One of the few battle themes I've encountered that I never get bored of, no matter how much I have to grind.

 

[DustyDrB]

I'm currently being reminded how good (and varied) Beyond Good and Evil's soundtrack is:

Spoiler

 

[kannibus]

Well, I've got no idea how to embed so I'll just have to settle for a boring ol' list.

1) One Must Fall 2097 Theme - this was one of the best electro sort of tracks for a video game there was ever designed.

2) Supreme Commander Main Menu Theme - For me this is the ultimate RTS Epic style music.

3) Act on Instinct - The ultimate RTS music PERIOD.

4) The Liberation of Gracemeria - Yeah, pretty much every time I see the trailer to Ace Combat 6, I still need to fire up the game and shoot down some bad guys.

 

[burningdragoon]

What!? No Chrono Cross. When will people learn..

Enlightenment, ho!
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/brokenrecord

Seriously though, most of these were pretty good. (And I wouldn't pick the battle music from FFXIII either but whatever)

 

[Manchubot]

If there is one thing from this list I must contest it's the menu music from Marvel vs Capcom 2. I bought the game for dreamcast soon after it was released and that song was the bane of my existence then, and it hasn't grown on me any since. Rest of it was a pretty good compilation, though I would have chosen the adventuring tune from Ys 1 instead of the MvsC2 tune.

 

[Paragon Fury]

How the fuck are Inon Zur and Kurt Harland not in this list?

What?

Inon Zur? You mean the people who did the absolutely terrible OST for Dragon Age?

Probably because I felt none of their work was better than anything already on the list.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Nice collection, and I feel like adding that WoW isn't the only music with outstanding music. While it's still my fav due to the sheer amount of variety, Age of Conan's tunes are also undeniably amazing:
Honestly I could just keep on linking music from that game, there's so much of it, and they only added more incredible music with the Rise of Godslayer expansion. It was a lot of fun when I played it as well, which was well after launch. Might get back to it again when I run out of stuff to discover in WoW.

Mass Effect 2 doesnt deserve to represent the series with music.

Son, I am disappoint;
As much as I adore both games, I never heard something that epic in 1.

 

[D_987]

As much as I adore both games, I never heard something that epic in 1.

You're right; and it's still a pretty poor song by most Video game OST standards - the Mass Effect games, in my opinion, have boring, lifeless soundtracks that, bar a couple of songs, offer little to the atmosphere or world. They're not terrible; but they're nothing special compared to the elites.

Obviously the likes of Jeremy Soule should be mentioned:

...and those are just from Guild Wars, he did the Elder Scrolls games [Morrowind, Oblivion and is scoring Skyrim] amongst others.

As should Nier's OST:

Spoiler: More Nier

What?

Inon Zur? You mean the people who did the absolutely terrible OST for Dragon Age?

Probably because I felt none of their work was better than anything already on the list.

Inon Zur did the soundtrack work for Prince of Persia 2008 [and indeed other PoP games]:


For Icewind Dale II:

And for Fallout 3:

Interesting post, I agreed with some, disagreed with others. All were definitely quality though.

Have you played Crysis? It had an awesome soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmLYOqrYgHU

Another Inon Zur soundtrack.

To argue his work isn't as good as the likes of the Battlefield games - or indeed 90% of your list that seems to consist not of a games whole music but of a single track you liked - many of which have a single memorable theme, is laughable...

 

[Grey_Focks]

Mass Effect? Check
Halo? Check

Yeap, you did well, son.

 

[The Wykydtron]

[HEADING=1]Objection![/HEADING]

No Phoenix Wright?!


[HEADING=1]Take That![/HEADING]

 

[Owlgravy]

Your lack of JSR disturbs me.
Seriously, I'm not normally into the kind of stuff on its soundtrack.
But, Jet Set RADIIOOOOOOO! has one of the best.

Also, Beyond Good & Evil (as mentioned above)

 

[Paragon Fury]

Battlefield only has one memorable track, eh?

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat - BF Main Menu Music

Bad Company 2 - Snowblind

Battlefield 2 - Armored Fury Theme

And yes, Guild Wars has some awesome music; but not as good as WoW does.

And most people would be hard pressed to remember that most Bethesda games even have an OST, much less one worth remembering.

 

[D_987]

Battlefield only has one memorable track, eh?

Yes, yes it does. From the tracks you linked the first was completely forgettable; the second was laughable - I've even played the single-player twice and extensively played the multiplayer but I don't recall a track from it, and the last is just another re-make of the theme. These themes aren't memorable on their own - and they can't count as such. Battlefield has only one memorable theme - it's main menu theme [note a theme is not a track it is a collection of notes]. That's it.

And most people would be hard pressed to remember that most Bethesda games even have an OST, much less one worth remembering.

It's not like Oblivion's soundtrack is universally praised or anything...besides, Oblivion's music has to be interesting to listen to for an extended period of time; due to the size of the gameworld, unlike say Halo in which the "epic" music is written for a very specific scene most of the time.

If you're really trying to tell me, from a musical, or indeed scene setting standpoint any of those Battlefield tracks is as atmospheric, moving, or indeed scene-setting [within context] as Wings of Kynareth from Oblivion then...I guess I'd be highly amused.


Final point - the quote button is there for a reason.

 

[repeating integers]

Agreed. The music contributed a lot towards the superlative atmosphere of that game (though I think the visuals helped a lot here too - the Karos Graveyard in particular...)

Yup, those backgrounds were bloody gorgeous. Well, the backgrounds in HW2 anyway. I never played the original. But I assume it had a similar aesthetic.

Was the Karos Graveyard the one with the blue-ish colour scheme and the huge (huuuuuge) derelict in the background? If so, then yes, agreed. That one really stuck in my mind. Gave a most agreeable feeling of... I dunno... history? Basically, It made me feel like an insect picking through the crumbling remnants of something ancient, immense and infinitely greater then myself.

...

This post is turning into outright fan-wank. I'll shut up now.

Well in the first one, there's no mention of the Progenitors, but you do go through the graveyard in one mission. It was... disconcerting.

It's funny - you've spent the rest of the game thinking the Mothership is huge, and the biggest ship in the game. Then you see the Karos Graveyard, and you shrink back into your chair feeling like an ant. It left a huge sense of mystery and awe, and not a little fear - the former third of which disappeared when Homeworld 2 explained who created them, sadly.


...yeah, this IS turning into a fan wank.

I'll just add a bit of non-Homeworld related variety to this post: I thought Mass Effect 2's music was far better than Mass Effect 1's. Mass Effect 1 had nothing memorable that stuck in my head, apart from Sovereign's theme. Almost all of Mass Effect 2's character themes are the opposite. Example:

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