It's Bat Mitzvah time for Music in Games (in the USA anyway). It's come in to itself. One of the most under-stated, neglected aspects of games has been sound and music. However, with games leaping into the consciousness of mainstream entertainment, developers are paying more attention to and putting more resources into sound and music in games.

EverQuestII dug into their parent's movie pockets and hired Emmy award winning composer Laura Karpman who scores the music and works with the Prague Symphony Orchestra to record the music.

Play! A Video Game Symphony certainly helped stick an oar into the snobby upper-crust. Oy! Look! Symphony orchestras are play themes and music from *gasp* computer games!

I'm talking main-stream of course. Not the onesies, that's popped up here and there over the years in the US. This Wikipedia article talks about game music outside of video games. Hmm... needs to be updated. But I digress. I'm not often impressed by the music in video games but the music from two games stand out in my mind currently.

Pirates of the Burning Sea - I heard the music broadcast over the loudspeaker system at Talk Like a Pirate Day. I've also received the CD of music that's in the Pre-Order. There's some beautifully scored music. Unfortunately, it's been processed for a video game - i.e. ambient music. There's no image for one.

Halo3. I've heard the music when playing the game and the 2-CD set of music will be released in late November. I may have to pick that up to have a listen and see if it's recorded in a way to recommend to my audiophile club.