Best Music, Nominees

Nothing enhances a gaming experience quite like a stirring musical score can. In the past two decades, game soundtracks have evolved from simple series of digitized beeps into moving, professional compositions. The best of these are created specifically to enhance particular scenes in their respective games. The following five games had some of the most impressive soundtracks this year, although one in particular proved to be especially impressive.

The music in Alice really helps set the game's dark mood. Created by former Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna, Alice's soundtrack consists of foreboding bells and a ghostly sounding girls choir. It's a highly effective score for setting the stage for the strange events that transpire throughout the game.

Icewind Dale is a role-playing game from Black Isle Studios that's set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. The orchestral soundtrack of Icewind Dale, composed by Jeremy Soule, does an excellent job of transporting you to the cold lands known as the Spine of the World Mountains and connecting you to the various characters and environments within.

In the action game Metal Gear Solid, you take on the role of Solid Snake, a soldier who must infiltrate an Alaskan base seized by terrorists. At times, the music in Metal Gear Solid reaches the quality of a score from a major film, as the music changes drastically to match onscreen action and dialogue.

This first-person shooter from Monolith attempts to re-create popular spy films from the 1960s, complete with over-the-top characters and environments. The music in No One Lives Forever is not only unique relative to other games in the genre, but it also fits the game perfectly thanks to its distinct '60s style.

The Sims gives you the opportunity to shape and mold the life of virtual people by giving them a home and a job and by making them perform various tasks. The music in The Sims is fairly unassuming at first, but it definitely keeps with the humor in the game as the easy-listening style continues to play even when the Sims are wreaking havoc.