I kind of reached an impasse with console video game music, so does anyone know of any PC games (or at least a game series that originated from a PC game) with decent soundtracks? Well, anything besides Falcom-related titles and Lost Child as I'm well aware of their respective soundtracks.

Thank you very much.

Check out the soundtrack to "The Neverhood."  Really off-the-wall stuff, but a great listen.

there are plenty of amazing PC Soundtracks out there:

Silver, Unreal, Grim Fandango, Loom, Outlaws, Outcast, Interstate - to name just a few.

some of them are impossible to find though.

There are TONS of great PC game soundtracks! It all depends on what you're interested in. Fantasy/RPG soundtracks seem to be the most popular, but there are also soundtracks to FPS, adventure games, etc...

Here's a list of some great PC soundtracks:

Age of Conan "Hyborian Adventures"
Diablo II
Guild Wars
Heart of Darkness
Morrowind
The Dig

and many more. Let me know if you're interested in anything particular genre-wise, and I'll give you what suggestions I can Note that some of the soundtracks are easy to find, others are very hard.

cheers,

-avatar!

what?

Yeah, that was my reaction as well.

I don't think there's any discrepancy between PC game music and console game music you know?

I kind of get what he's saying... take Final Fantasy music for example. Final Fantasy XI's music honesty doesn't have a "console" feeling to me because of the expansive/limitless feel MMOPRPG's try to capitalize on where as soundtracks like Final Fantasy I~X may do the same thing, but the world is obviously more limited and focused. This can also kind of work in reverse if you think about; if you have a game where the player is very restricted, a very open piece of music can make them feel less so - Star Fox on the SNES anyone? Such ideas are undoubtly formed by what expectations come with certain genres of games, and like anything based on opinion, there isn't going to be an exact science on it.

I disagree. I think there still is a large discrepancy. This is especially true among JRPGs and Western RPGs. As I said, it depends on what you're looking for.

cheers,

-avatar!

Noctropolis (1994)
http://www.mobygames.com/game/noctropolis

even though the game ran on DOS, the cd has 11 audio tracks after the  data track. ,, you can pick up a used one for $1 - $3 on half.com or ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi … 0450056354

Yet FFXI's first appearance was on a home console.

I'm not debating the difference between Japanese and Western music.
This is about PC versus console, which is a meaningless comparison.
There is no compositional difference between PC and Console music, why would there be?

Push It, in light of the posts others have made, I would appreciate your own views on the subject.

Yes. This.

Though it should be noted the "Imaginarium" album (two disc set) has music for Neverhood, Skull Monkeys, and some other game (don't know what it was, but it sucked?).

Skull Monkeys was a platformer for PS1.

Boombots, which might've well not existed for the amount of attention anyone paid to it. I think  I saw some amusing cutscenes on youtube, but that's a given for the games.

I wonder who did the music for Klaymen Gun Hockey.

also what the hell, gamespot:

say what you will about skullmonkeys or boom bots, but The Neverhood is f---ing fantastic.

what the hell, Gerstmann

I don't own many PC soundtracks, but there are several of which I'm pretty fond.

Western:
-Dark Reign
-Dominion: Storm over gift 3
-Icewind Dale
-Lord of the Rings Online
-Mechwarrior 2
-Pirates of the Burning Sea
-Star General
-Total Annihilation

Eastern:
-Comic Party
-Fate/stay night
-To Heart

They are all quite a bit different, but I enjoy each of them and would gladly recommend them.

It depends on what you're looking at. If you're looking at games that come out for both consoles and the PC, obviously there's no compositional difference. If you're listening mainly to console game-music, in particular Japanese composers (for example FF music), then there would be a difference since the music in most PC games that hit the US are from Western composers.

cheers,

-avatar!

Completely true. Still, when I think about the game I think of it more as a PC game than a PS2 game. The PS2's online capabilities and the Hard Drive needed for FFXI weren't really among the system's sucesses in my opinion - they completely ditched the HD with the thin model or did they come up with an external drive for that?

When I think of PC music, I still think of DOS games with OPL synth. That's not a bad thing.

Gerstmann said that shit? JEFF Gerstmann? What a douche bag. Neverhood is one of the best games evar.

Beyond Good & Evil had a PC release... so... let's consider this PC game music.
Link has been in the official forum for AGES, so it's half-legal, and you'll find it there.

The Longest Journey OST, hopefully still available for legal download:
http://www.longestjourney.com/download/music/

I also second the Grim Fandango soundtrack, semi-legal as the site owner only had to take the "Knights of the old Republic"-bits down:
http://soundtracks.mixnmojo.com/

Sam & Max has gone console now, nonetheless, the music is still excellent. Samples:
http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax/soundtracks

Uhm, I might have improperly used a word in my initial post, so I'll try phrasing the post in a different way: I'm just looking for something new to listen to and PC game soundtracks are about the only soundtracks I haven't given much of a chance to? Just trying to see if there are some PC game soundtracks that are worth adding to my collection.

That's all there is to it.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far -- Most of them seem very promising.

Well, that's entirely more reasonable than I usually expect when I say "what". Carry on!

seriously, though, a few suggestions:

Deus Ex - you can find many of the songs on Youtube. The game used the MOD file support of the Unreal Engine to have high-quality music at a small size with multiple tracks per file (like an area theme, the theme for that area when you're in combat, the theme when you're having a conversation, various transitional cues, etc) - in fact, the music was largely composed by Alexander Brandon, who together wtih Michiel van den Bos brought a lot of mod scene composing quality to not just Deus Ex but also Unreal, the original Unreal Tournament and some other PC classics. Unfortunately, the file format means that clean rips of the game are hard to come by. There's a partial soundtrack, but it was part of a limited edition (that you should admittedly own anyway, given how great the game is). Go ahead and download this, it's worth it.

Sadly, Brandon chose to go for a vastly more ambient style in Deus Ex 2  - the soundtrack was freely released, but other than the rearrangement of the main theme, I don't really think it has much to offer. Like the game itself, it's decent but is a pale shadow of it's predecessor.

Beyond Good and Evil - definitely seconding this one, as it has some truly beautiful music and extremely playful pieces that totally transcend what I usually expect from a Ubisoft game (although it is Ancel game, hmm). I should note that about a dozen or so of those tracks are actually medleys of thematically related songs which are distinct in the game's file structure, and there's about another half-dozen miscellaneous songs missing (most aren't really notable compared to what's already there). Sadly, I haven't seen any comprehensive rips that do anything nice like loop files or try and clean up the audio a bit.

Diablo series - Tristram theme, 'nuff said. Pity the composer went to join another company. :\

Ultima IX - listen to some pieces on Youtube....some very nice orchestral songs. They can be a bit repetitive, though.

feel free to name some. I'm still marveling over what SoundTeMP did with Ys II Special...up until then, I always thought of the AdLib as "that old soundcard whose ass Creative kicked".

Actually, I'd suggest the music from Doom. Robert Prince's music is really good despite the limitations of the original MIDI.

There is also the music from the DOOM Music CD which has some of the music from Doom and Doom II with the added bonus of enhanced audio, though the SNES version of the original Doom soundtrack really shines in my opinion.

Also, don't overlook the music from TNT Evilution.

Edit:

I could upload the MIDI's for you if you like, since that would mainly consititute a game rip and they themselves are not on any officially licensed album I think that would be ok enough to post a link.

I second Deus Ex. Easily one of the best Western soundtracks out there. The limited edition CD is like "the best of Deus Ex", which is a good choice if you haven't played the game, and many of the tracks are remastered (sound better than the originals). It's far from complete, however, as the rip I have has 2 and a half hour worth of music.

Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3 (my favourite track on the album)

I second Diablo. I don't remember Diablo II very well, but Diablo 1 is magical if you are into the type of music it features (aggressive ambient?). At the very least the town theme should win you over with its melancholic atmosphere. I think it didn't get an official release, but I'll gladly share the rip if you want.

Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3

I have more suggestions, but since the thread puzzles me (what about multiplatform games? Why PC games? And if you wanted Western VGM, why not create a thread "Western VGM recommendations"?), it's hard to recommend.

By the way, does anyone have a decent version of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers? I'm talking about rip, of course.

There's been loads of great suggestions so far, and I would like to add the Curse of Monkey Island as well.
A very nice mixture of Reggae, Jazz and Ambient.

Also, Dais and Ramza, you RULE for even knowing of the existence of The Neverhood.
Been playing it recently on PSX and been having a blast!

A lot of the old Sierra games are great (King's Quest V and VI for instance), and you can get many of them -- as far as I know legally --- here http://queststudios.com/sierra/sierra.html#mainmenu

You also could check tunes from Command & Conquer-series. His homesite does let you listen some of the tracks atleast. Haven't yet myself tackled to check his other game compositions, but maybe sometime if time lets me.

Great suggestions by everyone and I've pretty much heard everything that's been listed. However, like Princess-Isabela kind of hinted at early on, most of the suggestions fall into one of the following three problematic categories: A) No official soundtrack exists, B) Official soundtrack exists, but soundtrack is difficult to locate, C) Official soundtrack exists, but it's in mp3 format only.

Kind of a shame, too, as that Beyond Good and Evil soundtrack was definitely something I would like to listen to on my CD player. The Command and Conquer stuff wasn't bad, either. I will be looking for a copy of the Deus Ex and Doom soundtrack. I'll definitely probably snag those two Icewind Dale soundtracks soon.

As for the Japanese soundtracks to visual novel/dating sim/eroge games, 
it's not all that bad, but I imagine that a lot of them have a mellow vibe. I could be wrong, but I keep thinking "RPG soundtracks without the battle tracks". I appreciate that they're mostly synth, though.

That's the price you pay for "niche" interests. You have to be a little hardcore in tracking down the stuff you want. VGM Central is a great place to start.

Tracking down the stuff isn't the issue here; it's just that there isn't much to track down on the Western PC  game music side. The Eastern side, however, has plenty to offer, but I'm not sure if I could digest that much "love and happiness".

Well, it's true there are TONS more soundtracks released in Japan, but there are also a good deal fantastic Western releases. Frankly, you WILL have a hard time finding many of them, and if you do find them, they'll be hundreds of dollars. However, many of the soundtracks are phenomenal. Here's a site of Western game music:

http://www.vgmrush.com/albums.php

-avatar!

edit: note, the site above is FAR from complete... here's another VERY incomplete database (although it does include some very rare soundtracks):

http://www.bysmitty.com/Soundtracks/PCG … tracks.htm

smeggu-san please tell us more

I thought I posted a pretty good solution to your "A, B and C" issues. Or are you only interested in what music can be bought on CD? That limits you quite a bit. Often games without official soundtracks will have fan-recorded soundtracks you can download and burn to disc yourself if you must listen on a CD player.

I have no more to tell. I don't have any recommendations, I just like FM synth.

I have an $8,000.00 stereo system set-up, so the quality of an mp3 can be heard a little better when the music starts to flow from the speakers. I wouldn't mind downloading a soundtrack if it was in a lossless format, but there aren't many digital releases of that quality.

Sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to thank avatar! for those two links to the database. I didn't look through the entire list until just now. Even though not everything on that one link was PC-based, it did give me some more things to look out for -- That Toe Jam & Earl arranged soundtrack sounds promising. The Vectorman soundtrack is also something I've been meaning to get.

Also, I've never touched a Warcraft game in my entire life, so I was wondering if that's something someone here would recommend listening to? I don't believe anyone mentioned it and I'm fairly certain that's a huge game series on the PC platform.

Thanks again.