To limit myself to those who primarily score in games and to pick just one, I would have to go with Nobuo Uematsu. Final Fantasy VI will probably remain his magnum opus, but his (somewhat) recent work in Lost Odyssey was very good as well. I agree with Sirusjr that he's taken a bit of a dive lately, but the man's earlier work speaks for itself.
Honorable mentions go to Yasunori Mitsuda for his endlessly-hummable Chrono Trigger, Koji Kondo for the fairy-tale Zelda series, Michiru Yamane for her Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, James Hannigan for his Harry Potter scores that eclipsed those of the films, and -- based almost exclusively on Skyrim -- Jeremy Soule, who finally managed to impress me.
Stan Lepard *crimson skies* Akira Yamaoka *Silent Hill Series* Joris de Man *killzone series* the team that does the music for the "Soul Calibur" series, especially the 2nd game Jeremy Soule
Jeremy Soule Michael Giacchino/Chris Tilton Jared Emerson-Johnson Michael Land/Peter McConnell
Yeah, that Jared-Emerson Johnson guy has been doing some wonderful work for Telltale. He's NAILED Silvestri and Williams' score for the BACK TO THE FUTURE and JURASSIC PARK games, respectively, also incorporating the original themes. Very impressive. I'd like to hear him do something that isn't a take on other composers.
Yeah, that Jared-Emerson Johnson guy has been doing some wonderful work for Telltale. He's NAILED Silvestri and Williams' score for the BACK TO THE FUTURE and JURASSIC PARK games, respectively, also incorporating the original themes. Very impressive. I'd like to hear him do something that isn't a take on other composers.
His Sam & Max music has been great (though many of us are still waiting / hoping for a Season 3 score release), with some quite amusing songs to boot and he also nailed the Wallace & Gromit music too.
Your right about BTTF & JP, its tough taking existing work and adding new music in that style on a significantly smaller budget and manage to have it evoke the feelings of the movies. He did a very good job, its just a shame we can't really enjoy it outside of the game as TTG's license doesn't allow them to release music that includes any thematic material from those movies At least we got some of Jared's JP music though, something is better than nothing.
Jeremy Soule. I downloaded the OST to 'Oblivion' a few weeks back, and was hugely impressed. The new 4 CD 'Skyrim' OST (http://www.directsong.com) is in the mail, and I'm dying to hear it!
He did a very good job, its just a shame we can't really enjoy it outside of the game as TTG's license doesn't allow them to release music that includes any thematic material from those movies At least we got some of Jared's JP music though, something is better than nothing.
There's a free tool you can use to extract the audio from the PC versions of the games, if you own them and would like to whip up a custom playlist.
), the very funny Christophe Héral and all the Ace Combat crew. 
At least we got some of Jared's JP music though, something is better than nothing. 
