soundtracks on games: always a good thing?

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Yes soundtracks in games are always a good thing. But for people who don't want to listen to the game's music while playing, most games offer you the option to turn the music on or off, or increase or decrease the music volume. In fact, as a kid, I'd spend hours listening to NES, Genesis and SNES games' soundtracks via their Option menus. When another kid asked me what band I liked, I'd tell him, "Anything Nobuo Uematsu or Norio Hanzawa!". Back then I assumed that if I knew who the popular Japanese gaming composers were, then everyone else must too.

Depends on the game. I could listen to the Sonic soundtrack for days. I remember hearing The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and Stevie Wonder's "Supersition" and thinking both of thme sounded a lot like The Mystic Cave Zone. I never got into Sonic 3 until very recently and aparently the music is based off of Michael Jackson songs.

Music is a gateway, and through it flow powerful emotions that can't be triggered by mere words.

I can understand where you are coming from OP, in how you like to interpret the story your own way, but for me I can't completely reconstruct a scenario in my head with words alone. Music makes it all possible; the music helps you to fly away into that land...

Of course, not all game sound tracks are created equal. Take FFXII for example. I've never gone back and really played it since I put it down less than six months after it was released. Although I enjoy the landscapes and gameplay, the music is easily forgetable.

Oh! Let's not forget the associative property of music to a certain environment or character... (After spending time making a video to a certain tune, I now associate that tune with the related media.)

As with all music theory, however, silence is an important component that must never be forgotten or taken lightly...