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So here is a List.
3D Pinball Space Cadet: Everyone in my generation remembers 3D Pinball Space Cadet. Remembering 3D Pinball Space Cadet is probably the defining characteristic of my generation. It came bundled with Windows.
Theme
Bubblepop: A clone of Bubble Bobble (much better than the original) made by Software of Sweden, a demoscene group. Since they were a demoscene group, they knew their way around an AdLib card. (i.e. OPL-2 FM synthesis) Mostly not on Youtube, but one track is.
World 5-2
Chain Reaction: Match-three falling block game. Soundtrack isn't on Youtube yet, alas, but there's a longplay.
Clyde's Revenge: Platformer made by Moonlite Software (see Hocus Pocus) and released by Apogee. Not good, except for the prog rock organ noodling soundtrack.
Castle 1-2
Gizmos and Gadgets: Edutainment game about... engineering? I don't know why I had this growing up, but I did. Later on I found out that it had music - sound in games was hard to set up in those days even on new PCs, and mine at that time was older than I was, with a SoundBlaster that I assume was Frankensteined on at some point long after it left the store - and even some code to automatically transpose the multi-tracked music for the monophonic PC speaker, which worked well enough that the PC speaker versions are better than the other ones. (The OPL-3 renditions aren't good enough to be worth linking, so you get the Windows/Mac versions as alternatives instead.)
Aircraft #1 (PC speaker), Automotive #1 (PC speaker), Aircraft #1 (AdLib), Automotive #1 (MIDI?), Aircraft #1 (MIDI?)
Highway Hunter: Good shmup. Worth a download if you have an hour or two to spare.
Anarchy 5, Title Theme, Evil Drivers 2, The Lost Roads 1
Hocus Pocus: Platformer released by Apogee. Good graphics, good music, but... it's a platformer released by Apogee.
Title Theme
Jazz Jackrabbit: Epic MegaGames's answer to Sonic: a rabbit with a very large gun. There was a decent sequel for PC, and then a bad one for the GBA.
JJ1 Main Menu, JJ2 Medieval Jam
Lemmings: If you're going to play any of the games on this list, make it this one. (If you can find the Lemmings CD or WinLemm versions, you probably want them -- they made the distance a lemming can fall before dying a little higher, which is nice mostly because it completely breaks most of the handful of stupid boring levels.) The sequel, Oh No! More Lemmings, is also worth playing, but everything in the series after that isn't. There's also an open-source remake; I contributed a few levels to the default levelpack, but I have no idea if they're still in there.
Forest Green (CD), Tim Wright Forgot How Pachelbel's Canon Went But Tried To Do It Anyway (DOS)
Oh No! More Lemmings: See Lemmings. This gets a separate entry because the music is completely different.
Track 1, Track 6
The Secret of Monkey Island: I've never actually played this.
Title Theme (MT-32), Title Theme (comparison of many different sound cards)
Speedy Eggbert: God this game was terrible. Mediocre platforming with dismal prerendered 3D graphics, at some single-digit number of frames per second, as an entry in a series of... edutainment games, out of France... released on a compilation disk that hammered your computer with malware on install, by a shovelware publisher that was... bought in a reverse merger by a mining company. OK! Good music tho. And it's freeware now, if you insist.
Music 02 (OPL3), MUSIC004 (MIDI?)
SkyRoads: Before Jaan Tallinn made Skype, he was in a video game company. Aside from the title theme, all the music in this game was written on an Amiga and autoconverted to work on the AdLib card, which gave it a distinctive sound. But the reversed drums aren't a conversion artifact -- they were actually supposed to sound like that.
Title Theme, Road 6, Road 8
Tyrian: The best PC game before Doom, never mind that it came out two years after Doom. If you're going to play three games on this list, make it Lemmings, this one, and Highway Hunter. Targeted AdLib sound cards, and did a better job of it than Apogee ever did. Alexander Brandon's first game soundtrack, I think? But a lot of it was done by Andreas Molnar, one of the authors of the music software the game used.
A Field for Mag, Rock Garden, Ending #2
Wacky Wheels: The PC's answer to Mario Kart. I have no idea how Mark Klem got decent drum sounds out of the AdLib card.
Title Theme
3D Pinball Space Cadet: Everyone in my generation remembers 3D Pinball Space Cadet. Remembering 3D Pinball Space Cadet is probably the defining characteristic of my generation. It came bundled with Windows.
Theme
Bluppo: A clone of Boulderdash made by some guys from Croatia, and scored with three tracks of Rallizes-style bass-loop music.
4.MOD, 2.MOD
Bubblepop: A clone of Bubble Bobble (much better than the original) made by Software of Sweden, a demoscene group. Since they were a demoscene group, they knew their way around an AdLib card. (i.e. OPL-2 FM synthesis) Mostly not on Youtube, but one track is.
World 5-2
Chain Reaction: Match-three falling block game. Soundtrack isn't on Youtube yet, alas, but there's a longplay.
Clyde's Revenge: Platformer made by Moonlite Software (see Hocus Pocus) and released by Apogee. Not good, except for the prog rock organ noodling soundtrack.
Castle 1-2
Gizmos and Gadgets: Edutainment game about... engineering? I don't know why I had this growing up, but I did. Later on I found out that it had music - sound in games was hard to set up in those days even on new PCs, and mine at that time was older than I was, with a SoundBlaster that I assume was Frankensteined on at some point long after it left the store - and even some code to automatically transpose the multi-tracked music for the monophonic PC speaker, which worked well enough that the PC speaker versions are better than the other ones. (The OPL-3 renditions aren't good enough to be worth linking, so you get the Windows/Mac versions as alternatives instead.)
Aircraft #1 (PC speaker), Automotive #1 (PC speaker), Aircraft #1 (AdLib), Automotive #1 (MIDI?), Aircraft #1 (MIDI?)
Highway Hunter: Good shmup. Worth a download if you have an hour or two to spare.
Anarchy 5, Title Theme, Evil Drivers 2, The Lost Roads 1
Hocus Pocus: Platformer released by Apogee. Good graphics, good music, but... it's a platformer released by Apogee.
Title Theme
Jazz Jackrabbit: Epic MegaGames's answer to Sonic: a rabbit with a very large gun. There was a decent sequel for PC, and then a bad one for the GBA.
JJ1 Main Menu, JJ2 Medieval Jam
Lemmings: If you're going to play any of the games on this list, make it this one. (If you can find the Lemmings CD or WinLemm versions, you probably want them -- they made the distance a lemming can fall before dying a little higher, which is nice mostly because it completely breaks most of the handful of stupid boring levels.) The sequel, Oh No! More Lemmings, is also worth playing, but everything in the series after that isn't. There's also an open-source remake; I contributed a few levels to the default levelpack, but I have no idea if they're still in there.
Forest Green (CD), Tim Wright Forgot How Pachelbel's Canon Went But Tried To Do It Anyway (DOS)
Oh No! More Lemmings: See Lemmings. This gets a separate entry because the music is completely different.
Track 1, Track 6
The Secret of Monkey Island: I've never actually played this.
Title Theme (MT-32), Title Theme (comparison of many different sound cards)
Speedy Eggbert: God this game was terrible. Mediocre platforming with dismal prerendered 3D graphics, at some single-digit number of frames per second, as an entry in a series of... edutainment games, out of France... released on a compilation disk that hammered your computer with malware on install, by a shovelware publisher that was... bought in a reverse merger by a mining company. OK! Good music tho. And it's freeware now, if you insist.
Music 02 (OPL3), MUSIC004 (MIDI?)
SkyRoads: Before Jaan Tallinn made Skype, he was in a video game company. Aside from the title theme, all the music in this game was written on an Amiga and autoconverted to work on the AdLib card, which gave it a distinctive sound. But the reversed drums aren't a conversion artifact -- they were actually supposed to sound like that.
Title Theme, Road 6, Road 8
Tyrian: The best PC game before Doom, never mind that it came out two years after Doom. If you're going to play three games on this list, make it Lemmings, this one, and Highway Hunter. Targeted AdLib sound cards, and did a better job of it than Apogee ever did. Alexander Brandon's first game soundtrack, I think? But a lot of it was done by Andreas Molnar, one of the authors of the music software the game used.
A Field for Mag, Rock Garden, Ending #2
Wacky Wheels: The PC's answer to Mario Kart. I have no idea how Mark Klem got decent drum sounds out of the AdLib card.
Title Theme
