You love the games, you love the songs. It's like peanut butter and jelly for your other senses.
Hotline Miami - Sun Araw, "Deep Cover" (2012)
Influenced by the 2011 Nicolas Winding Refn crime film Drive, Hotline Miami is your classic top-down action single player video game: its protagonist kills mobsters, decodes secret messages and gets the girl — all while wearing a badass jacket. None of those things can be used to describe the reverb-laden psych drone act Sun Araw, whose track, "Deep Cover" makes a key appearance in the game, making it pretty '80s in a retro way. Chances are you're unfamiliar with the band, so even if you're not into the game, you'll leave way cooler than you began.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater - Goldfinger, "Superman" (1999)
Specifically: Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 & 2. Nothing embodies 1999/the early ‘00s quite like pop-punk and skate culture, here’s a game that delivers both. I’m pretty sure you could replace the soundtrack with a Warped Tour Compilation and no one would know the difference. Think Bad Religion, Papa Roach, Millencolin, Lagwagon. But mostly think "Superman" by L.A. ska punks Goldfinger, and that at this point in time, kids who played video games also knew how to skank.
Grand Theft Auto - Fever 105 DJ Oliver "Ladykiller" Biscuit (2002)
The mother of all licensed music soundtracks because these guys figured out how to please everyone: radio! Grand Theft Auto offers a bunch of different stations with real radio personalities, spanning all genres. Seriously, all of the genres. They even have their own YouTube video channel for their video game radio stations, ya know, just in case you'd rather listen to the soundtrack than play the game. Picking a song that fully captures the series is impossible, so I give this spot to Fever 105 DJ Oliver "Ladykiller" Biscuit. All baby makin' music, all the time.
Gears of War 3 - Gary Jules, "Mad World" (2011)
Okay, so 99.9999% of the music used in this game is the stuff of original composition, but Gary Jules' heartbreaking masterpiece, “Mad World” is used in the game (not to mention, the opening trailer.) And anything that reminds us of Donnie Darko is a-ok.
