Sound for games

Sound for games is very important for atmosphere and immersion, these days i can't really play a game without sound and have much fun, it provides one of the basic senses in a game.
Games use different sounds to create an environment, they would usually have a long sound file of ambient noise to immerse yourself into the game world and make a virtual place seem more believable with wind, traffic birdsong etc
Sound for games have been around almost as long as games have, from simple blips and bloops to full orchestral music scores, i remember the atari 2600 sounds being awesome with its primitive explosions and loud static noises. I also remmeber being really impressed at voice being implemented in sega genesis titles, with its original music giving different feels for its games.
I feel music in games is only recently been thought about seriously again, i remember the old Nes games like mario having really simple little tunes, but they were catchy and made you instantly recognise what game it was from. The Sonic series had its own original little music tunes that helped bring the game to life.
When the playstation was released it wowed people with functioning 3d graphics, but i feel the quality of sounds were lost, although they were at a higher bitrate and sounded clearer they seemed pretty generic and most games used stock sound effects from movies wich were boring.
The music was mostly thumping generic dance tracks with little thought put into them although there probably were exceptions. Most people bring up final fantasy (again) when it comes to music tracks but i listened to a few tracks and their all just poor looping midi files.. in my opinion.
However recent games have been quite impressive with their sounds and music, using full orchestral scores in games like medal of honour 2 and shenmue (bit old but whatever) and good ambient noise mixed with realistic sounds and voices in the game world.
Sound also adds to the gameplay of a game with certain noises being recognisable for when somethings going to happen, or music playing to make certain scenes more intense.
Some games have sound based puzzles, or sounds given as a indication of where to go or what to do.