Done 😊 What part, just the intro?

When I was a teenager, I loved the music of Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I didn't know / heard Roland at that time, and on my Sound Blaster 1.5 these games sounded beautiful.

Still, the SID of the C64 left an even greater impression. But on the PC, definitely these Lucas adventure games, especially how iMuse transitioned as you played through the game.

The Chrono series (Trigger and Cross) are probably the two games whose music left me with the biggest impression. I still listen to a few tracks every now and them. Warcraft II also left a big impression on me, yet I can't remember a single Warcraft III track from the top of my head.

I love SID music. Last Ninja, Hawkeye, Tetris, to name a few.

But for a more modern game... the original Need For Speed has some of the best music ever.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Done 😊 What part, just the intro?

As far as I'm concerned, the entire soundtrack. 🤣. In all seriousness, my favorites are the Intro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CalFsdE4tA&l … 32DCE95&index=1), Level 1 Medical (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-3u9vO9UUE&i … 2E2D1B4832DCE95), Level 6 Executive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOkOCAm-v0U&i … 2E2D1B4832DCE95), and Level 7 Flight Deck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up80FfzySFA&l … 2DCE95&index=16). If I had to pick one, probably the Intro. 😀

When I was a teenager, I loved the music of Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I didn't know / heard Roland at that time, and on my Sound Blaster 1.5 these games sounded beautiful.

In retrospect, I wish I had given these games more of a chance. I was not into the graphic adventure genre back then, but now when I listen to the music and watch gameplay videos, I realize I missed out on some good stuff. I think the only Lucas adventures I ever bought and really got into were Sam and Max and Full Throttle. Gog.com to the rescue. 😉

Still, the SID of the C64 left an even greater impression. But on the PC, definitely these Lucas adventure games, especially how iMuse transitioned as you played through the game.

Kind of like the impression the Mockingboard left on me. When I first got my Apple IIe, I had a friend with a C64 and we used to go over each others houses and play games. I was always so impressed by C64 graphics and music, but he only had a cassette drive so we spent most of our time waiting for games to load and hoping for no errors.

So many to choose from!

If we are talking PC, then I would have to say Terminal Velocity, Jazz Jackrabbit, Final Fantasy VII, Zone66, Epic Pinball, X-COM, SkyRoads, Legend Of Kyrandia, and Descent. I was HOOKED on console music though too - the entire Castlevania series on NES/SNES, Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III in the US), Mega Man series, Little Nemo: The Dream Master, Blaster Master, Battletoads, Contra, Lifeforce, Ninja Gaiden, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, just to name a few standouts for me.

Indeed so many to choose from!

A few that come to mind:
- Death Rally (especially the menu sound track)
- Little Big Adventure CD-tracks
- Various from SkyRoads
- Warcraft II CD-tracks
- Dune II
- Command & Conquer (and Red Alert)
- Need for Speed with the Dodge Viper video
- Doom / Doom II
- One Must Fall
- Fifa Soccer '96 menu (Sound track 6)
- Grand Theft Auto CD-tracks

And many others like Dark Ages, Wacky Wheels... too many 😉

Back in the day I played all these games with a Sound Blaster so I prefer the "Sound Blaster sound".

Here's my list:

- Descent (my all-time favorite MIDI soundtrack)
- Settlers II (I actually like the MIDI tracks better than CD audio)
- Zone 66 (currently recording both the Adlib/SB and GUS tracker music |-])
- X-COM: UFO Defense (the ground mission tune is very spooky at times)
- Jill of the Jungle
- Duke Nukem II
- Pinball Fantasies
- Wolfenstein 3D
- Corridor 7: Alien Invasion
- The Terminator: Rampage
- Vinyl Goddess from Mars
- Creature Shock
- Tronic (the tracker music is actually pretty good ^^)
- Radix: Beyond the Void
- Jazz Jackrabbit & Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (can't forget the rabbit!)
- Unreal Gold (sooo much tracker music goodness!! 😊 )
- Whiplash/Fatal Racing (very nice CD tunes!)
- FIFA International Soccer
- Z

Usually I prefer MIDI/tracker/CD music over FM tunes, but if it sounds really good I'll go for it.

- Fallout 1 / 2
- Planescape: Torment
- Half-Life series
- Portal 1 / 2
- Quake 1 / 2 / 3
- Blood
- Unreal Gold + UT
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Command and Conquer + Red Alert 1 / 2
- Warcraft II
- Metal Gear Solid
- Silent Hill (PS)
- Turrican series (Amiga)

Outcast, legendary breathtaking orchestral music.

A couple that pops to mind are the soundtracks of
The Dig
Pinball Fantasies and
Space Quest 3.

A few from different platforms. This list doesn't necessarily represent my favorite games, but represents the ones I think have the best music. Each links to one of my favorite songs from each game on the off-chance you've never heard of them.

SNES
F-Zero- Better than Mario Kart in all respects, not just musically.
Yoshi's Island - Remember that Mario game where you piloted a submarine that fired heat-seeking torpedoes and the final boss had a metal soundtrack? Plus it had that sinister waltz in it and I love waltz music. Hard to choose, whole soundtrack is awesome!
Donkey Kong Country 2 - For all intents and purposes, musically this was better than the first game.
Stunt Race FX - A seemingly juvenile game at first, but surprisingly fun and with a good soundtrack.
Uniracers - Who said the SNES can't do guitars? Hah, jokes on you.
- I was tempted to put Killer Instinct on this list along with some others like Street Fighter II (World Warrior, the other versions suck). The SNES is my childhood system and by far my favorite.

Mega Drive
Outrun 2019 - Impressive, even has drum solos. Takes some balls to do that with a Sega.
Streets of Rage - Loud and obnoxious, the intro to a Dreamland song (Anything for you) always reminds me of it too for some reason - about 38 seconds in.
Road Rash III - Rule Britannia!
- I am not a huge fan of the scratchy racket the SMD makes, I was but I started to dislike it more and more when I had to work with the hardware for extended periods of time. The Yamaha DX series were just shit. So I have a lot of respect for people who could get good sounds out of this thing, and a strong dislike of people too lazy to use the sampler or the PSG like the idiot who did the Thunder Force 4 soundtrack. What a loser.
Also, sorry, but I like the Michael Jackson game's music too. Actually, the game was kinda fun. Oddly, I don't really like Michael Jackson's music that much.

5th Gen
- Mostly crap, but it had a few good ones. So I have them all under one heading.
F-Zero X - and the Guitar Arrange versions of the songs Nintendo released on CD. Hey kids, this is the face of Nintendo I grew up with. (N64)
4x4 World Trophy - Because who wouldn't want to listen to obnoxious rock music whilst driving trucks? I like it anyway. I've owned some of the albums from the game since before I owned the game. (PS1)
Sonic 3D Blast - What a mediocre game (Seems to play better than the SMD version) but the OST was good in places. Very 90s. (Saturn)

PC
Duke Nukem II - I'm a Megadeth fan, so this goes without saying. Linked to my own recordings.
Atlantis: The Lost Tales - This was just magic, the theme is also good.
Atlantis II - OK, why does nobody ever mention these games? Again, has more good music in it than just that one.
Terminal Velocity - If that's no the 90s, I don't know what is.
Commander Keen - Because Bobby Prince is awesome anyway, part of the reason I started playing with synths.

There are more, but this is just a short list.

A lot of music i've transcribed to .mod with high accuracy seem to involve the 16-bit Final Fantasy games, so take a wild guess what my favorite games' music are.

Interesting topic! 😀
Good music is important part of the gaming experience. You just reminded me to fire up my ThinkPad 600 and hear some of them.

Grand Prix Circuit (1988)
The cycles (1989)
Wolfenstein 3D
Doom 1/2
Duke Nukem 3D
Stargunner
One Must Fall 2097
Age of Empires
GTA III
GTA Vice City

Obviously, nothing can replace the basic SB16 output from the Doom series, Blake Stone, Wolfenstein, and all those other DOS games we all love.

But I'm just going to focus on games that had great CD soundtracks:
Chaos Overlords -- Absolutely one of my favorite soundtracks! I highly suggest finding a copy of this game because 1) it's a great game and 2) the soundtrack is like no other... which is funny because the creator of the OST for this game, who you can still find on facebook, said (IIRC) that he'd never done this style of music before nor again.
Tribes2
Warcraft II
Quake 1 & 2
Missionforce: Cyberstorm
Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer II
Eve Online -- This game has some amazing tracks--many are just ambient of sorts, which are not everyones' cup of tea, but others are great.
Unreal Tournament 2004 -- I love the soundtrack to this game, many of which are great metal tracks.
Dungeon Keeper
Any Frank Klepacki music (C&C fame, etc.)

I'll try to think of more.

Mostly I am bias to consoles when it comes to music although to be fair I have never heard Roland hardware, FF7 does sounds fantastic on AWE64 and is my favorite game in terms of music and maybe in general, Phantasy Star 3, Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, Chrono Trigger, Soul Blazer, EVO search for Eden, Duke3D, Doom 1 and 2, and Lunar Eternal Blue complete all have music that helps complete the atmosphere of the game

There's some seriously good titles listed so far. Lots that had slipped my mind as favorites, such as Unreal, Descent and Half-Life. But I stand by my initial selections. 😀 Funny, when I go back and listen to the Ultima series on the Mockingboard, it doesn't sound nearly as impressive as my memory tells me it should. But at the time, it was light-years ahead of the internal speaker (and probably anything the PC could do around 1985) and the emotional pull it had on my gaming experience stays with me to this day. Same with the Wing Commander series (my first experience with General MIDI in games) and System Shock (just flat out awesome MIDI composition). Keep it coming!

I loved the music from Homeworld.

Edit: I realized I should be more specific. I'm referring to Homeworld (1999).

The soundtracks that made the largest impression for me are :
Fate of Atlantis
Dune 2
Galactix
Simon the Sorcerer
Gobliins 2
The Incredible Machine 2
Dune (discovered much later)

I have a strong preference for FM/OPL versions of these soundtracks, compared to the MT-32. To me the MT-32 feels sluggish and less agressive, almost too soft. A question of personal preference I guess.

In particular the iMuse work of LucasArts. Any game that uses music in an adaptive/dynamic way and does it well.