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Having recently played through Portal, I thought it was worth taking a moment to reflect on music in games - oft-overlooked, especially by PC gamers with MP3 collections. Which games deserve special praise for their musical contributions? Share your favorites, with links where possible! Here are a few of my top picks:
Stay Alive - Jonathan Coulton
Portal (PC) by Valve
Well, let's start at the end. Portal's end credits include a comedy song of epic proportions, sung sweetly by Portal's sinister cake-obsessed AI. Portal is a rare breed - a 2-hour game not only filled with puzzles, but filled with comedy, and the song at the end is a perfect exclamation point to what happened before it. There are videos up on YouTube, but generally, I'd recommend buying and playing the game though to the end to experience the song as intended
That's Death - Eric Idle
Discworld 2 (PC) by Perfect Entertainment
Once upon a time, PC gamers had games based on using their brains rather than just twitch-gaming, and the point & click was a prime example of this. The Discworld games were well regarded, if obscenely cruel in the puzzle department at times. But this little song at the start of Discworld 2 is completely unnecessary - but enormously fun. Comedy legend Eric Idle was the voice of Rincewind in the games, and was perfectly placed to write the song.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past; End Credits theme - Koji Kondo
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) by Nintendo
I don't know what it is about this one, but it's my absolute favorite from the 8 or 9 Zelda games I've played. I love the orchestral feel to it, the real sense of emotion in it, and yes I know it's done with synths, but that's how it feels. Koji Kondo's comp[osed an enormous amount of classic game music, and this track is what I feel to be his finest work.
To Far Away Times - Yasunori Mitsuda (start playback 55 seconds in)
Chrono Trigger (SNES) by Squaresoft
Those who know me well know my views on the Final Fantasy series, including the revered FF7: Light years away from Square's finest work. Chrono Trigger is their finest work. It's mighty fine. And this, the end-credit theme, makes it all the better. It's got everything a good ending-song song needs - a strong beat, heavy reference to what's happened before it, and I love the introduction of the ticking clock from the title screen towards the end.
Katamari on the Rocks - Yu Miyake
Katamari Damacy (PS2) by Namco
The Katamari games are a symphony of strangeness, a bizarre, inexplicable chunk of Japanese weirdness that you either love or hate. The intro does a pretty good job of summing up how the game, and the all-important sounds, progress - where the singers listed for a track on the second game's soundtrack include Bigmouth the Duck and Booby the Pig. It's really hard to pick a "best" track for this game, nay the entire series, but the intro is certainly something you'll recognize everywhere.
Na na, na na na na na na na! Katamari Damacy!
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, chemical burn is the best one, reminds me of loads of great vctf games
Originally Posted by Saracen
, and swiftly looked up the soundtrack to that. Wish the tracks were longer though 
