I''m not a professional game developer, but I have a little multimedia experience...
Generally for sound effects, I think you''d just be given a written specification and would refine that through trial and error. I don''t see why there''d need to be much time spent on checking the synchronisation there. However, for cutscenes, voiceovers and the like, I''d be tempted to say that you''d stick it all into something like Adobe Premiere, or maybe even Macromedia Director, and see how it all lines up. The only problem I see with that is that a lot of game video is not done in a format that these programs would understand natively. Maybe that can be fixed somehow, but I don''t know enough about the software to say one way or another.
Even games that make heavy use of sound and audio cues, such as Thief, don''t really have to worry about synchronisation too much as sounds are almost always very short relative to the gameplay elements they accompany.
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Im an audio engineer and sound designer with lots of experience in synchronous medias (such as film, tv, radio) and Id like to diversify into sound for games. Ive read a bit through gamasutra and this site, but its not what Im after....
Id like to know a bit about how developers interact with their sound team? What sort of info is provided for the sound design? Generally its Wav''s and midi files exchanged, but are there any development tools the sound team use to get a picture of how the audio reacts with the programming cues or is it just meant to be figured out on a multitrack with a trial and error basis? I realise these issues are platform dependant, but any info would be appreciated, and anyone in Australia who needs a sound designer, drop me a line! 
