Most people overlook the power of video game soundtracks. Although movie scores are often well celebrated, a lot of the video game soundtracks are underrated.

However, once you take a good look around, it’s hard to go back. There are majestical pieces for every genre, whether you’re a fan of rap, rock, or symphonical orchestras. There’s a lot of musical talent in the gaming industry, and a big part of it is lost on the audiences.

Today, we’ll have a look at the most prominent sites of the video game soundtrack scene, sites where music gets created, appreciated and remembranced.

Here they are, in no particular order.

OverClocked ReMix – Creativity

OverClocked ReMix is not just an archive of video game soundtracks, it’s a scene of musical arrangements. The people at OCRM look to video game music as an art form, and put themselves towards preserving, interpretating and – most of all – participating.

The members of their scene recompose famous – and obscure – video game scores, and release them on the internet. Copyright still belongs to ‘the rightful owners’, but the art is theirs.

In their passion, they’ve rearranged complete soundtracks of video games, including Final Fantasy IV: Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption, which we reviewed some time ago. Over 1700 remixes can be found on the site these days, and more get added everyday.

If you enjoy Overclocked ReMix, you should also check out its bastard nephew, OverLooked ReMix. Where OCRM is dedicated to professional arrangements, with symphonical precission, OLRM’s is humouristic – ridiculous interpretations of video game music, that’s what it’s all about.

Music 4 Games – News

If OverClocked ReMix is the creative scene, Music 4 Games is the professional scene. This is where you’ll find the articles, interviews and reviews.

Music 4 Games goes along with the time, and focuses on current-day gaming music. On the site, you’ll find extensive reviews of the respective sounds of new Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 games. Although you can play a track or two of most games’ soundtracks, it’s a site you go to for intellectual, rather than listening purposes.

VGMusic – Authenticity

Although the former sites both take a unique and highly appreciable position on video gaming music, VGMusic is the most authentic scene without doubt, simply offering the original soundtracks. Over 28,000 of them.

The site went along with the procedings of time, save some aspects. They’ve adopted current-gen consoles like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but the site’s lay-out is still in the 90′s trend and they’ve remained faitfull to the MIDI format. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to you to decide, but it’s certainly got its nostalgic charms.

With these three we close the list. There are plenty of others, like VGMix X, VGMdb and SquareSound, but the diversive three cover a pretty big part of the scene together.

Do you know any other sites to download free video game soundtracks? What do you think about the above ones? Let us know in the comments!