Humans + Gears consists of 33 arrangements of composer Yasunori Mitsuda's original score to the 1998 Square Enix game Xenogears from 30 different remix artists. The two-disc project represents the mechanical and human sides of the Xenogears story, with the first disc focusing on natural, soft, human sounds and the second more dark and electronic.

I've listened to several tracks off of the project so far, and I have to say that the quality of the work is simply amazing. There is no reason not to own this music.

The entire project can be downloaded right now from the album's official website either song-by-song or in one massive, 1.07GB torrent.

As innovative as Braid's gameplay is, one of the best aspects of that game is it's music. Jonathan Blow licensed tracks from Magnatune artists Cheryl Ann Fulton, Shira Kammen and Jami Sieber, proving that you don't have to hire a composer to find music that fits your video game to a tee. In honor of the game's PC release, Blow and Magnatune worked together to create an official soundtrack for the game, consisting of Braid's eight original tracks and remixes of "Maenam" and "Undercurrent" by Jon Schatz.

The soundtrack can be purchased as a CD or MP3s on the Magnatune website for varying amounts of money, depending on how much you feel the music is worth to you. Or, adversely, you could just listen to the embeddable player we've placed below until the end of time.

Music from Braid by Sieber, Kammen, Fulton and Schatz
Music from Braid [Magnatune - Thanks Evan!]

Her 'people' think that Still Alive might be about to change all that and are offering you lot the chance to see the music video for the track and to hear a remix of the song by Teddybears (who are presumably also household names in.. wherever they are from).

A full album of Still Alive remixes is on the way featuring mixes by Junkie XL, Paul Van Dyk, Benny Benassi, and Armand Van Helden. Check out the Teddybears' contribution here.

The tracks are released under a Creative Commons license that allows you to share or remix them as long as you give proper attribution and you don't try to use it for commercial purposes.

As well as listening to the tracks via the site, you can also download them directly using the little floppy disk icon next to the licensing info.

Joyous and free Castle Crashers tunes [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Anyway, what we have here is a cracking little collection of musical experiments created using the KORG DS-10 emulator for the Nintendo DS, for a competition at MP3Death.us/diplodocus.

I listened to all twelve tracks on the way home tonight and it is mainly what you would expect - squirly, twiddly synth sounds and squelchy beats. Some tracks have quite an 8-bit soundtrack feel — Aliceffek's 'Toneworks' is great fun and would not sound out of place on a Commodore 64 platformer — while the brilliant 'DSTennis' by A Rival is reminiscent of Hexstatic's 'Bass Invader.'

It may not be to everyone's taste, but you have to be slightly agog that this stuff started life on a little handheld games console. The competition to create this took place over just 24 hours - imagine what could be done with an extra couple of days..

Presented here for your listening pleasure - 'Sand' by Starpause.
Boomp3.com

KORG DS-10 Compo [Mp3deaqth via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Creator Andy Hofle has mixed together the sounds of games popular in the years 1981, 1983, 1986 and 1992, for those who might feel nostalgic for the days of miniature golf, birthday parties or skating rinks. He put a new tool up that ensures the files will play on any sound card, which is why this popped back up recently. The files are about 80 to 90 megs and mirrored at multiple sites. If you want the uncompressed sound you can get that on a CD.

The site says Avril Lavigne used Ambience Project sound in the background of a music video. It was also featured (with permission) in the documentary "Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball."

My audio memory of arcades is dominated by the sounds of Galaga, of Mario clearing barrels and collecting points, and the siren in Pac-Man. If they could release the mp3 in Smell-o-Rama or whatever, recreating that strange aroma of dust cooking on the back of a hot cabinet, sweetened by the scent of waffle cones.

Arcade Ambience Project [arcade.hofle.com]

This little beauty is never going to give the iPod any sleepless nights (or even the Zune, bless it's funny little heart) but for gamers of a certain age — or just music fans who appreciate a classic game when they see one — it has a certain charm.

The Muga is a rugged, but otherwise uninspiring looking MP3 player. Hidden behind that little screen, though, is an emulator packed with 20 classic SEGA Genesis games. Well, 20 Genesis games of which at least six are classics and the others are 'ok', anyway.

It isn't clear if these are hard-coded or if you can load your own 'found' ROMs, but there is an SD slot which can't just be for music, surely?

Muga MP3 Sega Genesis Game Player [GP2X store, via DCEmu]

Download "Battle of Attica"

I'm part of a wee small music collective from Ireland... (O)ne of our "artists" who goes by the moniker of KickAcid has taken a bunch of gameboy cartridges, plugged them into to his sampler, [bleeped] around a bit and made the seven minute magnum opus of a videogame theme nostalga fest that is "Computer Lame".

Those Irish have such potty mouths! In any case, I took a listen to it and I think it is worth the free download. Why? Well, on top of the fact I liked it (I would sneak it into a dinner party playlist for fun), you could also pull some of those fantastic Gameboy sounds yourself without all that nasty '.m4p' encoding. Kim Phu

Back Once Again [Shingdig Records]

The Wii is no multimedia device.

That shouldn't come as a great surprise to anyone, but the lack of seemingly basic features is still a bit of a let down.

Photo Channel: The heart of multimedia on the Wii is the Photo Channel. Here you can view photos and pictures off of an SD card and even play around with both a little. According to the manual, the Wii can play Jpegs, QuickTime videos and MP3s. Jpegs are limited to no larger than 8,192 by 8,192.

When you start up the channel you're asked if you want to view photos from an SD card or from your Wii's Message Board. If you select SD card the Wii scans the card and all of its subfolders and then automatically displays thumbnails of both images and supported video up on the the screen in a sort of big collage. Thumbnails of video are shown with a little filmstrip icon on them.

You can use the + and - on the remote to increase or decrease the size of the thumbnails and the Wii can show up to 1,000 images off of one SD.

There are several ways to watch your stuff. You can quickly flick through both pictures and movies with the D-pad or you can start a slide show.

While viewing the images one a time, the Wii allows you to zoom in or out, post them to your console's message board or even play with them.

When you click on the Fun button it opens up a menu that allows you to draw on your images. You can also apply four different filters, copy chunks of the photo for pasting or slap stamps on the images.

One of the coolest features in the Photo Channel is the ability to turn an image or a movie into one of those slide puzzles. That's right you can do this with a moving video as well. Kinda cool.

You can also create slideshows with your images. There are several rudimentary options you can select to change the way the images are presented, but nothing amazing. It's here that you also have the ability to listen to MP3s.

From what I've seen so far, and I did a ton of searching, the absolute only way you can listen to MP3s right now is in a slideshow. There doesn't appear to be a separate music player or anyway to have it inserted into games. At least not yet.

You can both view and send photos to the Wii's Message Board. And once in the message board those photos can be sent to friends.

The photo browser and video browser is a breeze to use, but the Wii's inability to use the images, video or music anywhere else sorta makes you wonder why they bothered to include it. I sure hope a future update will add at least a simple music player and perhaps a way to customize your Wii's menu with personal images. Brian Crecente

The Japanese version of the Play-Yan not only played media files, but a baker's dozen of simple, freely downloadable games from Nintendo with clever names like "Nose", "Avoid" and "Jump". Check out Gizmodo for more details and check out this review of the Play-Yan Micro to learn more. Michael McWhertor

The Mysterious Nintendo DS MP3 Player [Gizmodo]

This page seems to be for the Omelette fellow (I assume this person is male, but I have my doubts) to post his terrifying furry cartoons, the style of which seems to have remained exactly the same since he was ten years old. I am deeply mystified by this, as well as strangely compelled by his flowing, golden-brown mullet.

No matter. The reason I bring him up at all is that he's posted a big fat steaming pile of downloadable game music in the form of "Flying Omelette's Top 50 Favorite Game Ending Songs". Here's what he has to say about his #1 choice, the end theme from Final Fantasy 6 (after the jump).

It was a really difficult decision, but in the end, I just had to give the edge to Nobuo Uematsu's bombastic ending theme for Final Fantasy 6. I really love how it incorporates a lot of the game's songs, including every main character's theme in the first part, and Terra and Setzer's themes in the second part. I'll also remember thinking how awesome it was at the very moment I first heard the Final Fantasy Prologue kick in. The ending is the only place in Final Fantasy 6 where that song is heard. An epic masterpiece, this song really goes out with a bang.

The vast majority of his choices were 2D RPGs, so the selection is extremely limited. But it's all very well-organized, with mp3 and MIDI downloads of each theme.

...the longer I look at this site the more uncomfortable it seems. You let me know if this person shows up on any Have You Seen Me flyers in your mailbox, yeah? Spooky. Eliza Gauger

Top 50 Game Ending Songs [FlyingOmelette, via Digg]

A Kotaku reader took apart an old NES controller and converted it into an MP3 player, how sweet is that? Unfortunately the source site is in German (I believe). Martin says that since taking the pics of his new player he's replaced the battery with a rechargeable one that can charge will plugged into a computer with a USB cable.

The real question is when is he going to start selling these bad boys.

Nes Controller MP3 Player [Future News, Thanks Martin]

Electronic Arts is making the big move into music sales. The publisher announced today that they are teaming up with Nettwerk Music Group to launch EA Recordings. EAR (they're so clever) will distribute EA's game music for download as ringtones and mp3s via a variety of online services like iTunes and Rhapsody.

I wonder if they will let gamers who buy their titles download the music from the title for free or at a discount. That'd be awfully nice. Of course I can't imagine EA is going to turn their nose up at a pile of cash instead.

EA Plumps for Apple iTunes [The Inquirer]