I am amazed by Mr. Soule's work on the OST. It is one of the best video game soundtracks I have ever listened to. Even if the game lost its novelty after 60 hours, I am still listening to the soundtrack.

Best soundtrack of this year by far.

Have you heard any of Bastion's music? Because I it's one of the best I've ever listened to.

Portal 2 also has a nice one if you're more of a techno guy and it's free.

Bastion was a pretty meh game. Portal 2 was great, but I wasn't terribly fond of its soundtrack. Wasn't bad or anything, but I like orchestral music a lot more.

Saints Row: The Third and Sonic Generations are also top-notch. In my opinion.

Can't forget to say in my opinion ;{D~

Yea the music really great love listening to it.

Soule has done better works.

I haven't listened to all the tracks by themselves but in-game the only one that caught my attention was the Morrowind one.

I liked alot of what TW2 had, and DA:O

Nope. I gotta go with the Gears 3 OST.

I do love the soundtrack in Skyrim better than oblivion and about the same as Morrowind.. I like it's more Nordic feel unlike Oblivion's fairy tale fantasy OST...

The music is my favorite part of the game.

So beautiful and inspired, with a thoughtfulness and depth in the composition and arrangement. Was thinking the other night, how I wish that Jeremy Soule could experience it the way that I have. I feel it is one of his best works.

Skyrim does indeed have an excellent soundtrack. I have an MP3 copy of the Skyrim theme song on my interwebs PC just so I can listen to it when I'm not actually slapping trolls around.

Bastion takes two prizes this year IMO: Best Soundtrack, and sixiest narration.

The OST is indeed beautiful, but I haven't listened to those of every game this past year and cannot make a best OST of the year judgement (neither can any of us, really, I'd wager). In addition, there were also a few other really good soundtracks this year. Say what you want about the game, but Two Worlds II surprised me with the quality of its soundtrack and I really like Uncharted 3's. Although I'm not much of a techno music guy, Deus Ex: Human Revolution's was also pretty well-done. There are a few more I'm probably not thinking of right now and unless we're sticking to just western releases, Ni No Kuni over in Japan has an absolutely heart-melting soundtrack (can't wait for localization and release over here in the west - should be this year).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl9CkeVNcRM

MArk morgan still beat out Soule I think.

Soule's work really is wonderful. I don't know if I'd call Skyrim's OST the definitive best, but it is the best I've heard in the past year. When I see his name on the credits of a game, I know the music will be of great quality. Ironically, my favourite Soule track of the year is actually the introduction piece to Guild Wars 2's Gamescom 2011 trailer. xD

Pokemon: Black

That jazzy soundtrack in Castelia City is reminiscent of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Very well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsqViZdHPJE felt better to me, but mostly because the soundtrack was clearly designed to accentuate the events on screen, especially the boss fights. In Skyrim, it is mostly ambient stuff, and major events don't even get their own unique tracks. No special boss music for fighting Alduin, just normal dragon fight music as an example.

On the topic of examples:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym-mQlanzHE&feature=related

Uncharted 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDRxuIsGUzs

Ni No Kuni - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISbVq8Z9dQM

Two Worlds II - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLRBHm6L_q4

Hmm, that's a good idea. Skyrim could use special music for the major quest events (i.e. defeating Alduin).

Hmm, all this talk of best game soundtracks this year made me think of best game soundtracks of all time:

For that, I would have to say Thief I and II.

No matter what you think of the game(i loved it) Brink has an Amazing soundtrack!

The Witcher 2 also had a amazing soundtrack worth checking out.Just youtube the soundtrack the path of the kingslayer is pretty tight.

I'm actually a little sad that the special edition didn't come with the soundtrack.