{listen} It's In The Game: My Favourite Gaming OST Moments

My second passion behind my mission to absorb all electronic music - it's all mine, it's not for you, I will have it all - is dabbling in games. My history in games started way back at the turn of the eighties when my brother received a tape of a game that one of his college peers had made. On that tape was Revenge Of The Mutant Camels and the promising young student was Jeff Minter - one of the grandfathers of the gaming scene. From an Atari400 up to my 1070 equipped PC, I've dabbled in a fair amount of games over the years. While the advance in graphics have always wowed as the generations shifted, the most memorable - and arguably ageless - part of games for me have been the soundtracks.

My fatherly duty in insisting the kids get the retro education in quality games.

As a bit of a deviation from my dives through the contemporary electronic music scene, I thought I'd craft a post about some poignant nostalgic memories and those rare tracks that I would actually listen to outside of the games themselves. That last part there is a particularly important point - I don't really listen to soundtracks shorn from their games. More often than not, they need the context to thrive. To be included on this list beyond a childhood memory is a bit of a badge of honour. Verbosity aside, let us go right back.

Eventually my Amiga became a machine that I ran Trackers on. A Tracker was a pattern based grid sequencer. While the Amiga was doing its best with 1MB of RAM and four channels of audio, you can see a master at work here in the form of Aphex Twin. However, I do have a particularly fond memory of playing Codemasters racing game Jaguar XJ220. I spent countless hours in the course designer making grand sweeping tracks, purely so I could just cruise along to the outstanding soundtrack.

It was only in the last few years that I made the connection between the composer Martin Iveson and a deep house artist I was fond of called Atjazz. They were the same person. Have a check of this excellent Atjazz track on the long defunct DiY Discs, which is now fetching a pretty penny on the second hand market. You can hear the same chilled out deep house vibe in effect as it was on the XJ220 soundtrack.

The CD32 was a bit of a missed opportunity for Commodore. One of the first ever CD consoles, its success caught the company by surprise. Unable to fulfil demand and supply a decent array of dedicated games, the platform shrivelled and died.

Diggers was one of the launch titles and was the absolute epitome of CD32 games. It was, in effect, your bog standard Amiga500 title with a CD soundtrack dumped on top. I've still got a copy of the game upstairs and you can skip to the audio tracks on any CD player. Copy and paste for a lot of the CD32 catalogue. While Diggers was about as painfully average as you can get, it sported a supremely amazing ambient soundtrack. Cavernous clanks, bangs, ethereal choral wails, wind rushes, and then one of the most amazing lead solos towards the end of its loop. I've stuck this in chill out mixes before, such is my belief in the track.

Ocarina Of Time is pretty much cited as the benchmark Zelda title. I'm not going to comment on Breath Of The Wild until I get my hands on it, but I'm happy to hear people's Zelda face offs in the comments - and for what it's worth, Link To The Past is my personal benchmark. What always struck me was the wonderful dungeon music. Each level got its dedicated theme and it was the Forest Temple that stuck with me. Drifting atmosphere unparalleled, I've also used this in mixes before. With a touch of delay.

Nobuo Uematsu is such a revered figure in gaming soundtracks thanks to his evocative works on the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy is quite an important title for my family. My love for the games - VII onwards is my era - spread through my family with it touching on every member. Even my older brother, who doesn't game, found its pull as he performed as part of several Distant Worlds concerts in the UK. Check this cheeky video I got from Uematsu at one of the gigs.

Of all the pieces of music from the games, this sticks in mind as one that I find myself drifting to every now and again. Final Fantasy X's theme is generally downbeat, the underlying current of inevitable loss bubbling under with amnesiac protagonist Tidus oblivious to the themes that only reveal towards the end of the game. Wandering Flame is particularly striking for its introverted reflection. Feel free to @ me about Final Fantasy, I will go on forever.

When Fez came out, I used to read stories of people who would play the game and just stop to listen to the soundtrack. I was a PS3 gamer, so it was two years before I got my hands on the title. In the interim period, Disasterpeace's soundtrack became - and still is - a constant companion. 8-bit Vangelis is about as succinct and praiseworthy a phrase can be. This was one of the few tracks that were up for preview on the Bandcamp pre-order page, which I listened to and promptly moved the mouse to the purchase button. If this strikes a chord with you, do make sure you swing by the Hyper Light Drifter and It Follows soundtracks.

I think it was last year that I purchased Oxenfree on iOS and made my way through it. While I owned it on PC, portability unlocked the game for me. Mostly amazing - I had issues with some of the voice acting and conversation pacing - it was genuinely creepy and engaging. One track shone out from the soundtrack by SCNTFC, Alsos. It lies somewhere between Pye Corner Audio and Boards Of Canada for my money, which is about all you really need to say and I'm there. If you've not played it and have an iPhone, go check it out.

I was pretty familiar with the work of Daedelus, so it was a sweet surprise to see his name pop up when researching the soundtrack to the Vic20 looking fencing game Nidhogg. The game itself is a fantastic two player battler, frenetic and pure. The soundtrack was also top drawer - out there electronica occasionally veering into braindance. It was around this time that I started to note more and more contemporary artists making bespoke soundtracks to game, beyond the usual licenced efforts as found on Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo.

I think that is about appropriate a place to wrap things up. I hope you enjoyed the music moments and I'm sure there will be many more to come on this topic in the future. Hit me up in the comments, more than happy to chat forever on this one.