Who is the best music composer in gaming?

[Sargerus]

As the title says, who do you think is the best music composer in gaming?

[Fuzzzie]

Nobuo Uematsu. Did a lot (if not all?) of the Final Fantasy scores. Brilliant work.

[Creatinebrah]

Michael Jackson for composing SONIC music.

Jesper Kyd for composing Hitman music.

Kelly Bailey for composing HL music.

[Darios]

Well that's a tough one, as we've seen in recent weeks Jeremy Soule continues to make great music. There's also Jack Wall who did an incredible job on the Mass Effect soundtrack. And I'm really a sucker for Michael McCann's work in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Final Fantasy has had a lot of good music over the years but the recent games have left a bitter taste on the series for me.

[Azutael]

Honestly, there's so much good music in games that picking one single composer would be extremely difficult, if not impossible for me.
Most recent "omg this is awesome" moment has been with Darksiders 2, they did a great job on the music for that series.

[Wromthrax]

None of Blizzard's games on the list?

[Sargerus]

None of Blizzard's games on the list?

AFAIK Jeremy Soule did MoP's soundtrack

[Porimlys]

No Russel Brower or Matt Uelmen? No Koji Kondo???

Yet you got Hans up there for Call of Duty

[Digglett]

Wow, no Koji Kondo, bad list.

[Darios]

Wow, no Koji Kondo, bad list.

See? It's nearly impossible to narrow down the list because there are just so many good game composers out there.

[Adam Jensen]

Gah!

I can't vote for Jack Wall and Jeremy Soule at the same time!

Jack Wall it is . . . for this:



But Jeremy Soule for this:



And an honorable mention to Clint Mansell for this:

[Cat1337]

Really hard choice! I'd have to say Akira Yamaoka, although Koji Kondo, Jack Wall and Clint Mansell are all really close.....It's a shame Akira left the SH Series, his music was the only thing the newer games had going for them: /

[Digglett]

See? It's nearly impossible to narrow down the list because there are just so many good game composers out there.

Yeah, but Koji Kondo is the grandfather of all composers.

[Sj]

I agree with Diglett. Kondo's not my favorite, but he's damn good and has been doing it a long, long time.

My favorite is Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Chrono Cross, with credits on Shadow Hearts 1 & 2). His work on the Chrono Series is some of the most memorable music for me.

I also really like Koji Kondo (like I said before), Akira Yamaoka, and Nobuo Uematsu. So many good composers out there though.

[Arkenaw]

Jeremy Soule > Masato Kouda (Monster Hunter) > Nobuo Uematsu > Koji Kondo

[Wynnyelle]

None of the above. Grant Kirkhope takes the award for me. But of the ones on there, I'd say Jeremy Soule.

[Sarix]

Too bad Yoko Shimomura isn't in the poll. She did the music for the Kingdom Hearts series and it's really great

[Zarlk]

I'd have to say Yoko Shimomura is. She composed the music for Legend of Mana which is to this day one of my favorite games.

[Fenlnir]

Inon Zur, Martin O'Donnell, Micheal Salvatori are all really good as well. The music from Halo has to be some of the most moving from a game I've ever heard. It's hard to disagree about Jeremy Soule, but Hans Zimmer has never really appealed to me. His stuff is good, but it's not my thing. I won't try and not butcher their names, but the Witcher 2 has some great music. So far Borderlands 2 has some good stuff, with Jesper Kyd, Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan contributing.

[Harry Botter]

As much as I lobe Nobuo and I even got to meet him, he signed my Unopened Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 3 SNES games. I have to go with Harry Gregson Williams