There's a song by Delerium called "Window to your Soul", which is a 10-minute long, kinda soft instrumental track. You never really -listen- to it.

I had that on, inexplicably, infinite repeat as I played through Beneath a Steel Sky. It was.. surreal. You could never be quite sure what was the song, what was midi, and what was your own mind interpolating when both were at low points.

Also, after watching that GoW trailer, it seems that the game would be kinda ruined by too much fast industrial-ish music. Must just be my tastes, but the emo really, really fit.

Edit: Also, I consider a worst music corollary to this thread would be a good idea. I'd nominate Hexen and Hexen2 for that. Midi with the game, and then.. midi on the redbook audio. Why?!

Secret of Mana when you get to the Pandora Ruins.

Earthworm Jim II's Villi People, where as a tiny salamandar you navigate a maze of intestines collecting meal worms for the game show at the end. Set to the Moonlight Sonata.

Donkey Kong Country's Aquatic Theme.

I still get kiekerenbisj (goosebums) whenever I hear the Deionarra song in Planescape: Torment.

The Quake II soundtrack was great for some Mortal Kombat 4 ass-kicking: pumpin' rock ftw! For racing games, I like my beats pumping.

And of course, Rez (Dreamcast) was the ultimate: create your own soundtrack by leveling and shooting stuff. Where art meets games.

We often play the Total War soundtrack that came with my collection box (music from Shogun, Medieval, and Rome) when we D&D.

Neverwinter Nights 2 has a very neat soundtrack too, imo.

When I was in the worst of my Project Gotham 3 addiction I had a playlist that was over five hundred tracks long dedicated to just that game. I sorted through my entire music collection picking out songs that would be good for driving, whether in real life or in a game, to fill out that list.

It included everything from Tom Petty to KMFDM to Metallica to Type O Negative.

There's just something about trying to set a lap record on the Nurburgring with Runnin Down a Dream or Fuel mixing in with the roar of whatever V-10 monster car you're driving.

I was a little late to the FPS party, I'll admit. Krondor had its hooks in me for a long time, there.

I _love_ listening to classical, particularly Beethoven symphonies, when playing action games.

Don't ask me why but World of Warcraft puts me in a Coldplay kind of mood.

I always really loved the soundtrack from Activision's Battlezone. I'd pop that in the CD drive for some Quake 2 fragfests back in the day.

I usually just go with whatever's in the game. But my son likes to play Oblivion to the "Curious George" soundtrack. Especially when spelunking around in old castles. And he plays Need for Speed to Tech 9 and Flogging Molly.

Katamari Damacy does the same thing to me. Na naaaaa na na NA nana na na nana na nananaaaa...

Most Final Fantasy's have awesome soundtracks.

Damn you! Now it's in my head!

Yes, CD-ROM drives were barely alive when Doom first came out. If memory serves, Doom itself came on 5 3.5 disks. I remember playing an early "acquired" version (hey, I was young) that didn't even have any mobs in it, you could just run around the levels. It was very cool. You know, in some ways, I think that the early-mid 90's were gaming's best days. Maybe it's just that I was 12 or so years younger...

On my old Xbox before It went byebye, All my ripped sdtks were Depeche Mode and Bjork. So save for JSRF (awesome sdtk) all my xbox experiences where you could customize the game music were usually to one of those artists. Puts a unique spin on Burnout and many other games. Generally I like to listen to MiniMoni while Playing WoW, but if that isn't available I listen to OC remix songs.

I loved the Doom soundtrack, with all it's creepy tunes. I especially remember a map where you had "come out come out where ever you are" on the soundtrack. It was that, or my imagination.

I don't often pay attention to music, but here are some old school (and I mean OLD school) game theme songs that I actually went and got in mp3 form:

Archon: Yeah, the combat chess game. Love that opening theme.

Alternate Reality: The City and The Dungeon had great opening songs. They even had lyrics that were displayed karoake style, though the audio tech at the time wasn't good enough to include actual singing.

MULE: A classic with a great theme song.

Ultima 3: The Atari version had great music, themed to location. I'm especially fond of creepy music from the fire castle at the end.

Oh and I forgot to mention these two CDs which for me are irrevocably linked with certain games because they happened to be in the CD tray when we played these games:

Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" and Warcraft 1. I think this was the CD anyway. I'll never forget how it would start into the play demo every time while playing that harmonica intro to "You Don't Know How It Feels".

Mission Impossible soundtrack and Quake 1. There's nothing like lobbing grenades in The Necropolis to the music of The Cranberries ("Dreams").