In the spirit of Video Game Blogs / Podcasts the world over, I thought I’d kick off the first ever Top Five List [Yet To Be Named] with my thoughts on the very best in video game music.  I am not talking the annoying little diddy’s that get stuck in your head for days, so people call them popular and add them to their sites.  That’s like saying Nickleback deserved to be number one based on sales because senile old grandmas bought the CD’s for their grandkids for Christmas.. much to the children’s dismay and inevitable suicide.  No, this list is songs that you remember because of how they made you feel when you listened to them and listening to them now… you remember that one moment in the game when you thought to yourself…  ‘my god.. this game is amazing.’

Fair Warning: Spoiler Alert [if you've lived under a rock.]

Number 5: FallOut 3 – Let’s Go Sunning

Stepping out into the world of the Wastelands, seeing nothing before you but ruins and the remains of what was once a great society, can only ever be absolutely punctuated by the soothing sounds of sweet jazz. An upbeat melody in a downtrodden world that sings to you soft words of a better time when people were living without their flesh rotting off their faces. It elicits a sensation of longing for that history, a desire for something better…and the ultimate realization that we’ve all completely fucked ourselves in the end.

Number Four: Legend of Dragoon “Requiem”

In the history of video games there will be several great deaths, and with those great deaths come great laments to remember our favorite characters by. Requiem is the Theme of Lavitz, one of the coolest and most bad ass friends your main character will ever make in a game. From the moment you meet him, you know that he’s far superior to anything you could ever hope to be, and simply basking in his glory is a gift from the high heavens. You also know that he’s destined to die, because your best friend always dies. Game Developers Hate You.

Number Three: FFVII Aeris OMGDEAD

Speaking of Characters Dying… I don’t think there is really anything I have to say about this one. We all remember the first time we played Final Fantasy VII, and we all remember that feeling we had when we realized all those accesories, weapons, and gil we gave to Aeris was gone into oblivion with the pointy end of a very large sword. We also remember the heart breaking feeling as her theme starts to play, and the materia makes it’s first depressing little ‘ting’ on the floor. This game teaches you never to love anyone, ever.. and it’s a good thing Cloud got the message or he wouldn’t have been nearly as emotastic as he was in Advent Children.

Number Two: Metal Gear Solid 2 ‘Main Theme’

Not a single person who has played through the entire Metal Gear Solid series, can listen to this song [in its various forms] without thinking of the triumph and challenge that you felt as you/Snake fought against Metal Gear, an evil twin, a tortured past and an all too quickly closing future. It makes you feel like you can always fight to see another day, regardless of how ancient and senile you’ve gotten over the years. Bullets will always fly, innocents will always be harmed, and there will always be heros that will be there to wage the battles through the passing decades for the ultimate right. War may have changed, but damn it all if this song doesn’t make you feel like simple things such as hope, honor and courage, have not.

Number One: Shadow of the Colossus ‘The Opened Way’

It is so very hard to pick just one song from this soundtrack, and I mean that with every fiber of my being. Every single song can pull a serious emotion from you as you remember the first time you battled the massive Colossi and came to the realization that you…not them… might be the bad guy. Peaceful and harmless creatures, though very large and intimidating, do nothing by exist until you come along with your sword and stab them to death. Did you question every moral lesson you were ever taught as you tried to reassure yourself that you were doing this for the right reason, that it was for the greater good.. or that they were monsters and didn’t deserve to live? Add that to the absolute Epic-ness of the battles themselves; how you tensed when you gripped onto their fur or a small ledge and hoped to all the higher powers that you didn’t fall eight thousand feet and have to climb all the way back up again. The victorious [and often regretful] feeling you got when they finally fell, crumbled and wasted away into a cloud of black mist? -That- is the reason this song gets the top spot. …but you’re still a horrible person for murdering all those cuddly Colossi. I am telling PETA on you.