Every generation of games technology leaves something behind. 2D practically died with the PlayStation, and this generation I think I’ll start to miss the clean textured look that’s being replaced by pixel shaders, bump mapping and so on.

Anyhow, the Amiga offered many wonderful games with a unique style of music. The technology behind it involves step sequencing audio samples and some of the music people made with the format was uniquely beautiful and pure. It saw some usage on PC too - Unreal and Unreal Tournament were probably the last games to use the music format as did the early 3D Mark releases with music by Teque.

Hear for yourself. Grab MODPlug and head to Exotica, the best place to find most great Amiga game tracks (often supplied by the composers themselves). Assassin, Cannon Fodder, Heimdall and Lost Vikings are some personal favourites. The menu music for Crusader: No Remorse on PC is also particularly memorable. There was of course also a thriving community of composers that made numerous excellent MOD music pieces. It’s not yet a dead audio format but its decline certainly continues.

Game musicians like Jesper Kyd (IO Interactive), Bjørn Lynne (formerly of Team 17)and Skaven (Peter Hajba of Remedy) also got their start in the demo scene doing tracker music and some of them still take part on a hobby basis.

Technological progress is inevitable and generally exciting, it’s just a shame when we no longer see games being developed with a certain visual or audio style because the technology has moved on. It’s almost like the limiting technology of the 90s encouraged some wonderful technical innovation and design creativity. Then again, mobile and web games have had a habit of reviving the art and music style of these classic games, for now anyway.