Wing Commander III and IV
Warcraft 2 ending Human Saga
One time my score was like 345.324,138,000.6
I beat my friend’s which was 57
Best music is from Jet Set Radio, followed by Grim Fandango. Close runners up are Curse of Monkey Island, Final Fantasy Tactics, and SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4.
My favorite cutscene is probably from Final Fantasy X, when Yuna does the dance to send the souls of the dead to the afterlife. All the cutscenes in that game are so astoundingly well-done, but that’s the scene that’s really moving and not just overpowering spectacle.
Another favorite is in Jet Set Radio, when all the rival gangs in the city are being announced. You get a shot of each one, with their own dance moves – Poison Jam and the Noise Tanks are just bad-ass.
For some reason, I’ll never forget the cutscene from The Secret of Monkey Island when the ghost LeChuck is in his ship’s cabin looking over the pits of hell and he has a conversation with a skeleton/ghost cabin boy about the whereabouts of Guybrush Threepwood. That scene is what got me into games in the first place; it was the first time I saw that videogames were capable of telling a real story.
I’ll nominate Sim City 3000 and Grand Theft Auto 3 (it’s original, unlike VC) for best music.
Best cutscenes:
Metal Gear Solid 2–near the end, the slow-motion walk of Raiden, Otacon, and Solid Snake. VERY emotional, very powerful.
Metal Gear Solid–Sniper Wolf’s final scene, with Otacon and Solid Snake. Again, great music and very emotional.
Also, pretty much all of “Sam and Max Hit the Road”.
Even though I spent much of the game wanting to squeeze Squall’s neck till I heard the satisfying muffled wet crunch of his windpipe imploding and vertebrae snapping (he just wasn’t a terribly likeable character for some reason), the 20-odd minutes of ending cinematic after you beat FF8 really gripped me.
The intro to <i>Syndicate</i> was really nice. (Would have been nice to have an ending one.)
For its time, the intro to <i>The Seventh Guest</i> made me go, “whoa, I have to buy a cdrom drive now.”
The ending to <i>Interstate '76</i>. THAT was a satisfying revenge moment.
Speaking of satisfying revenge cutscenes, the closing bits of <i>Max Payne</i> had me cackling from the amount of overkill inflicted.
It’s the best soundtrack ever, but it doesn’t count because it’s a compilation of other folks’ songs. It’s great, truly, but I don’t think you can compare it to scores/soundtracks actually written for a game. My votes there go to Final Fantasy Tactics and Grim Fandango. I own the soundtracks to both, and I think Square should fire !(( Nobuo Uematsu, who does the music for the flagship FF series, and replace him with the amazing duo that did the Tactics music.
Best cutscene–even though it’s not the newest or prettiest, it’s the one that sold me on cutscenes in general. It’s in Final Fantasy 7. Tifa is trapped on the edge of a huge steel girder (actually a cannon, the Sister Cannon!) with nowhere to go, and the backround is a pre-rendered still. Suddenly one of your comrades tells you to run off the end of the cannon. As you run Tifa towards the end, the scene seamlessly switches to CG-animation, and your buddies come and whisk you away in their newly-acquired airship. It’s also (I think) the first time in FFVII that the Highwind theme plays. Priceless, absolutely priceless.
The end of FF8 was beautiful and moving, but it didn’t reach out and grab me the same way Tifa running off the Sister Cannon did.
Actually the intro to the morpg anachary online is pretty good
I liked the fall out game intros pretty well also
slight hijack … WAs anyone besides me mad that in wing commander 3 You didnt get to do the final planet run that ended up being a starwars ripoff ? After all the crap and base hopping ya had to do in a asteroid field you just got to watch it as the ending …
Best score: the altered beast theme
Or the realm theme*
*REALLY SUCKY SHOOTER.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Porn star Candy Suxx head and shoulders bob left and right as Tommy Vercetti speaks with the director. When Tommy asks Candy a question she excitedly yells out “Yes…Yes…YES!” and Tommy doesn’t know if she’s just acting or answering his question.
Best music would have to be Legend of Zelda. I still hum some of those tunes to myself after all these years.
Marc
**
UH, for those who haven’t played the game the above scene is taking place in a studio during a porn movie shoot.
Marc
What? I remembered that I had to do rather long level(over a lava trench) to reach the final target on Kilrath. Were you playing a non-PC version or something.
hmmm i might be remebering wrong or mixing parts up … byt i played the 3do version
For score, I’m tied with the FF VI soundtrack and the Guilty Gear X Heavy Rock album.
For cutscene… the opera scene in FF VI. 
The scene in Fallout in which the mutants find your base and you get dipped and your vault gets raided frightened the shit out of me. I restored my saved game and found my poor wanderer nervous as all get out and not knowing why. It was what I suddenly knew might happen that made the game immersive.
I dug (and still listen to) the tunes that accompanied the original Carmageddon. It was instrumental stuff, some techno-type which wasn’t that cool, but there was some instrumental industrial-type metal that is unparalleled as hard drivin’ music in the real world. Still haven’t found out who created those pieces of metal mastery…
I think Carmageddon may have also been the first game where you could take out the game CD and put in your own music and it would be interspersed into the game (corrections expected if I’m incorrect)
Best Score: Final Fantasy VI
Best Cutscene: Opera Scene in Final Fantasy VI(or the intro to the now off the market Suikoden III).
Hmm, I seem to remember being able to cue commands in HW1…but it was a long time ago and I DLed and installed the patch before I played it.
I second any mentions of Grim Fandango, I was so sad when that game ended…
Also any Monkey Island mentions, I am a serious addict, especially I and II.
One game I guess I’m pretty much the only one to enjoy the cutscenes on is Gabriel Knight II. I just loved the scenes in the opera house…
Personally, my favorite cutscene is “Battle on the Amerigo”, from Starcraft. Mostly just for the cold fusion line. For that matter, the final sequence at the end of the Terran campaign, and the Protoss scene above Aiur where you see Jimmy’s ship decloak, were also pretty cool.
The best cut scene is clearly the Mighty Bomb Jack Super Bowl Halftime Show in (the greatest game ever) Tecmo Super Bowl .
Favorite cut scene: the one in Starcraft where the Marines and Ghost go into the Science Facility and duke it out with the Zerg, then detonating the nuke.
Favorite game score: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City