Exactly what it says on the tin, and if possible a link to said music would be nice (if thats possible and legal). Games seem to have the sweeping orchestral score that big budget movies used to have.
Of PC games I’ve recently played I especially liked the intro and in-game music to:
Deus Ex
Far Cry
Crysis
Prey
Halo
STALKER had extremely atmospheric music if not exactly easy-listening.
I remember liking the song in the end-credits for MDK but have been unable to find it since…
Discarding DDR, Rock Star, Guitar Hero and the like (since, you know, music being the whole POINT of them…)…
All the Final Fantasies from the SNES era on forward have great music.
SquareEnix in general actually, generally gets the good music.
Katamari Damacy and We 
Katamari have really fun soundtracks. (Everlasting Love is one of my favourite tracks ever.)
Turn up your subwoofer and listen to Max Payne 2.
Chrono Trigger and Ocarina of Time.
Contest over.
For 8 bit bleeps and bloops, Shadowgate is pretty darn swell.
Ecco the Dolphin on the SegaCD.
Bully for the PS2
Sonic the Hedgehog. I swear that one level has music that reminds me of European softcore porn.
Odesio
Call of Duty and American McGee’s Alice in Wonderland (the latter being composed by Nine Inch Nails, I believe).
The music from Secret of Evermore has always been one of my favorite game soundtracks. Despite being made on the now-ancient Super Nintendo, the music was lush and moody, and often intensely atmospheric, with a lot of environmental sounds like wind, running water, and jungle ambiance being worked into the pieces. The soundtrack was the debut work of composer Jeremy Soule, who went on to score many other hit games such as Morrowind and Oblivion.
bouv already mentioned Chrono Trigger, which is another classic SNES game with an astounding soundtrack. I’d also add Radical Dreamers, a sort-of sequel to Chrono Trigger that never saw a release outside Japan.
Incidentally, the guy who did the Secret of Evermore and Chrono Trigger YouTube videos has a whole series of videos showcasing the soundtracks of dozens of classic games. Definitely worth checking out.
By Chris Vrenna, who was once a member of the Nine Inch Nails touring band, but not by Nine Inch Nails itself.
Speaking of Nine Inch Nails: most of the Quake games, like that genre in general, have typical blood-pumping macho guitars type soundtracks (call it “FPS rock”), but, in contrast, despite all expectations, Trent Reznor’s soundtrack for the original Quake is sort of brilliantly minimalistic ambient music.
Speaking of “FPS rock”: If you liked the music of Deus Ex (and who doesn’t?), you might like that of Unreal Tournament (same guy, Alexander Brandon), though it is pretty much the same as every other FPS’s soundtrack. But still enjoyable, in its way.
Donkey Kong Country
My vote in these is always for Chrono Cross. No game has done a better job drawing me into its world by just the music. The music does a fantastic job of conveying the sleepy island setting and is utterly charming to me.
I came in to mention Chrono Cross. This game has the best music ever.
Case Closed.
Just watch(and listen) the the introduction
You forgot Donkey Kong Country 2, as well =) Both amazing music.
I’ll also add:
Total Annihilation
Super Mario Galaxy
Zelda: Link to the Past
Zelda: Majora’s Mask
You can’t have a list of great video game music without including the Road Rash series.
Not technically available, but I’ve always enjoyed the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto II and III. Not so much the Vice City and San Andreas/GTA IV incarnations…
They used to have a whole bunch of original music, some “written in the style of a genre” such as country music on the country music channel. However, it was universally good and it lost a lot when they started getting real acts in to provide the music…
I believe some of the GTA III stuff was real acts, but not famous ones, so doesn’t count so much.
Its a bit different from the orchestral score of most of the other games though…
My sister and her boyfriend, musicians both, admire the music Nintendo comes up with for its games. Ocarina of Time was singled out amongst them.
And Red Barchetta got Total Annihilation before me too. The only shame about the music is that the system to automatically switch from “building” to “fighting” music didn’t consider the change worthy unless there was an epic battle happening. And even then it waited a bit to change over the music :rolleyes:
Mentioned before, but you can’t go wrong with the Max Payne 2 soundtrack.
I’d also like to add the Civilization IV, in particular Baba Yetu (link to free download)
And as a player of Dungeons & Dragons Online, I like the Official DDO Soundtrack as well.
Every once in awhile I still hum the theme from Legend of Zelda.
The Myst series. All of them.
The Daniel Indart Project’s music for Tropico. I actually bought the CDs.