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Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art
May Kasahara writes "Recently, I discovered The Gallery of Hideous Box Art, a collection of some of the worst illustrations ever to grace video game packaging. Many of the entries compare the US cover artwork to the (superior) Japanese ones; in some cases, comparisons with screenshots are also made. Come browse through the annals of video-game-artwork badness, from Strider on through to Wonder Boy III."
Linked to on Slashdot's frontpage... I smell disaster.
some of them aren't too bad. they look pretty anime-ey, but they aren't too shabby at all.
Does Windows XP constitute as a game because I hate its art. I also kind of hate it.
While I wouldn't say it was hideous, this definitely seems to be the time to bring up the original box art for Wizards and Warriors 2: Ironsword, for the NES.
Why? Well, for no other reason than that that is, in fact, the one and only Fabio, in silly costume, portraying the main character.
Having looked at the site before it gets slashdotted I'd like to comment on it.
All of the box he featured were from games from the 16-bit era, or earlier. Does this suggest that hideously bad box art is a dying trend? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any recent game that has had bad box art. Most box art today is spectacular, like for Warcraft 3.
Has anybody seen any recent (i.e. N64 / PSX and onward) games with bad box art? Maybe there was a few for the PSX / N64, but the latest consoles? It's hard to say, though recent Japanese games may have "wierd" box art.
Some may consider box art almost like garnish etc, on food, even though its not functional, it gives a better feel to the product.
Also a case like activision's sky jinks would discourage purchase. Still, you cant judge a book by its cover on old games, or you might miss some memorable gaming moments.
ah - I hadn't yet got to Rival Turf -- that is pretty bloody shocking.
http://kidfenris.com/wbface.gif
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Megaman? I mean it's one thing to make bad box art for a bad game (read: rival turf), but Megaman was a classic.. and the cover art, well .. check it out:
ack!
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Ack! Square
NAPOLEON AT BAY
Grandia
Astal
Alpha
Guardian Heroes
Hard Battle
G1 series-1
X-Men COTA
Check out Mobile Light Force 2, now there is a game with a crappy cover.
--jdan
That's just the smell of a server melting under a Slashdotting.
(Weeps into hands)
has a character that looks like Rosie O Donnel with a sword.
(AHHHHrrgh!)
Man, they just don't make art like that anymore. Does anyone have Starpath art online anywhere? Revenge of the MindMaster and Communist Mutants from Outer Space featured some pretty strange (but cool to me) cover art.
Blogging because I can...
I wonder if Tycho was thinking about this when he said that...
Could that be William Shatner on the first cover?! Is there anything the man hasn't done. :)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that games for the BBC microcomputer had some of the worst cover images around. Looking back to Barbarian II (love the boobs!), Frak!, or even Spycat brings back disturbingly nightmarish images from my childhood.
Ladies, form queue here -->
How about the game that head the best looking box art but REALLY SUCKED when you played it?
Gorkman
May Kasahara writes "Recently, I discovered The Gallery of Hideous Box Art, a collection of some of the worst illustrations ever to grace video game packaging.
Surely not as hideous as slashdot's classic games colour scheme eh?
Ceci n'est pas une
That guy was Fabio. you know the i cant belive its not butter guy.
Like, duh.
don't forget this gamespy article.
Paricularly while it was still downloading and a bit fuzzy.
Sort of makes sense once you see the Planet Of The Apes version.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
They should write an article about bad translations in video games. Zero Wing would certainly be #1.
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
The overlay art on some of the Intellivision game controllers was well thought out and designed too.
Never understood why kids didn't like that about the Intellivision over the Atari - guess it's the same reason people buy Macs & PCs - Macs are superior in just about every way - as far connectivity, design, and interface, yet the crowd goes to what Dick & Jane have.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Definitely Zork. Great cover art, but the in-game graphics sucked.
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(For the humor-impaired: Zork was an early Infocom text-only adventure game, and was incredibly fun. Zork is probably older than most of the people who are reading this, which makes me feel thirty-one flavors of Geezer.)
Except for speed, included mouse, cost, and available applications, I guess Macs are better!
One more generation after EverQuest II, and it might look as good as the box.
Incidentally, the new black on dark blue Slashdot theme looks terrible. The black border around the page doesn't help, either, although that may be due to weak support for Mozilla.
Check out Gamespy's list of Top 10 Worst Box Covers in their Humor section.
I remember Miner 2049er had particularly crappy art:
% 20vol%20II.jpg)
Image here
(http://www.mutantes.com.ar/images/miner%202049
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Every time someone mentions Fabio, I remember this episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, where in the invention excange segment, there was a Fabio kit.
Went kinda like:
Fabio...Fabio...Fabio...Yes we're all Fabio, and you can be Fabio too, with our excluse Fabio kit. Comes with blah blah blah...
Crow and Tom Servo in horrid blonde wigs with carboard pecs taped to thier bodies...
oh god...I can't stop laughing...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Hmmm...this post needs something...how about we go around and start photoshopping pictures with one of the lines from this game, say..."All your base are belong to us" or something. then string all the photo's together into a flahs animation with a groovy little techno beat....
naw... that would be a silly waste of time, nobody would ever do that.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Funny, I always thought wonder boy was a fun-loving , short young man with curly blonde hair. Not this demented, evil freak with a zombie grin on his face.
I prefer the low-res graphics.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
... the worst cover art I've ever seen is this.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
and you are the King of Loudmouthed Anonymous Cowards
I hope that the illustration of this game... was somehow misleading... o not so creative like their atari siblings... trying to capture the essence of this game in an image... may need help from the goat.cx photographer
Re:I Would Like To Say (Score:-1, Offtopic) by switched4OSX (668686) on Thursday June 12, @10:15PM (#6188185) Why pay for the subscription. I'd rather hack her backdoor
there was Hunt the Wumpus
Okay well it's not box art, but it's from the days before there were boxed games.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Time of death is 5 AM EST, as I tried to look at the thing I might add, slash, dot, poof. Much as I love this site, I'd be really pissed if they killed my server someday.... lol
Yeah, I have to agree that the "404 Not Found" box cover art is pretty hideous as well.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Back then, cover art was relegated to the airbrush drawings that artists came up with because nobody would dare put a screenshot of an 8x8 sprite on the box. These days, games are so good looking that actual screenshots are often times better than most artwork you could come up with.
I don't know how others make purchasing decisions, but if I see a game box without screenshots I say away from it. I want to see how the game looks as it will appear on my computer, not some Photoshopped, airbrushed to death artist's rendition of how they think it ought to have looked. Give me screenshots over "artwork" any day of the week!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I think there should be a list for game packages that are way over dramatized compared to the game. You know what i mean. Those game art packages with some fancy oil painting while the actual game characters consist of 64x64 pixel drawings.
.smell my feet.
From GameSpy
Since older videogames had relatively simple graphics, box art artists often had to "embellish" and conjure up visions of what they imagined the game would look like if the creators had more than 16k of memory to work with.
Unfortunately, the guy who did the artwork for the Atari Computer port of Pac-Man envisioned Pac-Man as a buck-toothed, Frisbee eating, washed-up marathon runner with high socks who lived in a castle.
There's a rumor that a live-action Pac-Man movie may be in the works, but it won't be nearly as good as my version. If I directed the film, Pac-Man would be an unemployed guy in a yellow suit who lives in a dirty apartment and verbally abuses his wife (Mrs. Pac-Man). At the beginning of the film, Mrs. Pac-Man leaves Pac-Man for Dig Dug ("At least that way I'll get a good pumping every once in awhile," she'll say) and Pac-Man soon spirals deep into a crippling "power pellet" addiction. To make matters worse, the ghosts buy Pac-Man's apartment complex and threaten to evict him. Pac-Man is powerless to stop the ghosts, so he gets chased from his home and ends up chomping up marbles on the street. Eventually, he starts having seizures due to pellet withdrawal and ends up in rehab. He's cured and released, but ends up overdosing on power pellets, bursting into the landlord's office, and eating all the ghosts to death. Then Pac-Man goes on trial for murder and it's really dramatic.
Hollywood will no doubt steal my brilliant story idea. Just you wait.
Anybody got a mirror!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
*ROTFL*
You moderators, if you don't understand the topic -- like for instance, if you weren't even born when what's discussed was current -- DON'T FUCKING MODERATE!
She's the girl on the cover over the barbarian games. Okay? Get it? Discussion about covers, link to person on covers => on topic
Fucking newbies.
Although now I'll never look at my old C=64 the same.... ugh!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Not as good as that "Cock'em", I'll admit. That's downright creepy.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Does anybody have a link to a cached version?
The Intellivision was a great game device (we were lucky enough to hve one.) For 2 player games (football /baseball/autoracing/ armor battle) it couldn't be beat.
I still have mine, and hook it up ocationally.
It had some problems though
The paddles had 16 directions (atari had eight). But those paddles could be hard on the thumbs.. And the buttons on the side of the paddles weren't great.
But it cost more than the atari, which didn't help.The games cost more. Also some where significantly more complicated (entering plays for fotball required reading the manual.) which made it harder for the real young kids. Also It came out later than the atari and had a smaller installed base.
I liiked it anyway..
looks like they not only took down that page that got ./ed, but also the rest of the site as well. none of google's links seem to be working.
Ultima VII:The Black gate.
The box was plain, deep Black with the gametitle in dark blue.
It was so radiant Black and opposing the screaming color schemes of other games in that time, it really stuck out.
Not to mention that U7 was one of the best RPG's ever made, and the black box foreshadowed the deep, dark and brooding storyline.
...that the guy with the sword on the "Barbarian II" cover later became "Wolf" in the British "Gladiators" TV show?
Bellend.
Celebrating to Slashdotting, in the title?
... it's not funny. ;)
No, seriously, I think (hope) that Zork is enough a part of computer lore that most (even younger) geeks would at least KNOW of it, having heard legend of these text-based adventure games back in the day.
But to avoid that topic, I'll simply make three major points.
1) The Wonderboy link was already part of the main story.
2) Penny Arcade's servers are capable of Slashdotting.
3) This isn't even a full Slashdotting story, because it's merely linked from a section story.
These games boxes don't have a thing on Taiwanese motherboard boxes. If you want to talk about cheesey artwork, they're untouchable.
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You bastards!
Since I first saw it in a game magazine a while back I've been thinking that Everquest Online Adventures might just be the worst cover art in the past 5 years (if not more!). See here.
Dead Slashdot, I found the coolest site in the entire world. Please, post it for millions to see and click on and drive into the ground so the site that gave me some enjoyment can be completely wiped off the face of the internet in a few moments. Thank you!
The real problem is that the desktop revolution made anyone think they were capable of design, even though they are manifestly not even nearly capable. Combine that with plenty of bad taste, and what you get is a bunch of crap.
It's too bad they put some ugly blue dude as the Namless One against an orange background on the cover. Should have had a box babe like Annah or Fall from Grace. It would probably have had more sales.
I can get a 700Mhz eMac for $599 at the Apple Store right now and at a few resellers - truthfully not figuring in labor to build a computer from parts is not an arguement as "most people" as you say, can't or won't do that. Also, buying a sub $800 computer is foolish at best, you'll be lucky if that's all you end up spending on it. And yes, same arguement applies, WHY wouldn't you want the quality/extra uses even the low end Mac at the slightly higher price provides?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Intellivision had some weird overloading quirks.
:)
In Intellivision baseball, for instance, rotate your thumb rapidly clockwise (or maybe it was ccw) around the number pad while pressing the side buttons. If done right, your baserunner becomes semi-transparent (flicker) or even invisible and stays that way. Football had a similar quirk, but I don't remember it being very useful.
In the Triple Strike! tank battle, rotating the disc about 90 degrees rapidly (one screen edge to the other and back) in a corner and pressing buttons rapidly (press 2-3 at once with your thumb and rotate it across the pad) would cause your tank to float across the screen as a bulletproof flickering object. If timed right, you could stop the tank (reconstitute) in a wall by pressing a side button and be invincible because you could still shoot out, but couldn't be hit. I think I also could do something like this on the 2600 Combat, but it didn't leave you safe (you just drive into and through the wall to the other side).
In Astro...something... (the asteroids falling from space game), holding 9 or something like that (maybe the bottom row of buttons?) while clicking the lower right side button caused it to start in a slow-mode, so racking up 1 million points becomes much easier (there was a contest for doing this back in the 80s, where you send a photo of your screen with the high score, which was won with somebody who hit 2.? million). I racked up about 4 million that way, but never sent a screen shot in, since I knew I cheated (I also broke 1 million in a real game, but a while after the contest ended, and was about million off from the winner). Ah, the good ol' days
Football was basically a 2 or 3 play game when good players competed - the screen pass to the top of the screen, some other kind of pass that lined up like a screen (usually a bomb pass), and a 4-5 yd quick pass. If the opposing player judged which you were using wrong, it was pretty much instant 50yd gain on the screen or fake screen. There was only one defensive lineup that worked at all against the screen, but even that would usually give up 5-6 yds if played correctly and the opposing player didn't go for the sack or intercept (an intercept usually went for a touchdown on the screen).
The guys at X-Strike Studios (a collective of SUNY Fredonia Media Studies students) are doing a movie based on River City Ransom. Teaser trailer's already posted :)
Hey we're linked to by Slashdot!
;)
Let's give up trying to get some extra bw and just delete the entire site
I think on the cover of my video card box there is a golden bull-man with a golden ring in its nose and horns on its face. And the whole thing is on fire. And there's blue sparks and lightning. And to top it all off, the card is clearly labelled "Golden Sample."
here is a bad shot of the box.
We need to compare mobo/vid card boxes as well as the hilariously bad game boxes.
The screenshots you see on boxes are edited 99% of the time, so you might as well include them under the heading of box art. A friend of mine made decent money doing this for a well known company on a very well known game that was released recently. If you really want to see how a game looks, your best bet is to look up screen shots on gaming sites since they are supposed to be unaltered. Much like how game commercials these days show nothing but FMV and no in-game shots, game companies want the box to look as attractive as possible, so screenshots are included as part of the marketing package.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
If anyone managed to mirror the site before it went down, let me know. I can host a mirror on my server if someone wants to FTP it over. Drop me an email traid @ pr0n.biz
None of us are as dumb as all of us.
That guy looks even worse than the green dude in the ad section of Maximum PC o_O
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
"People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy." -G.K. Chesterton
But we could sling quotes around all day long. However, orthodoxy does not mean non thinking. It means trusting to what is commonly accepted, as opposed to leaping on radical new thoughts. For an example you may understand, Orthodox thought has it that the United States Government is 'by the people, for the people' and not the all knowing, all powerful entity that the past 50 years of radical thought has created. Orthodoxy is the realization that change comes through evolution, and not revolution. It is care, planning and waiting, not as you would say, unconciousness. Posted anon as this is way offtopic, feel free to mod me into oblivion now...
Oh, my God! That's funny! Thanks!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The original Zork packaging and downloads of the code...might need a dos emulator to run it...
Error encountered in IAWebSig.clsSig.Create: Last Procedure: sPrc_Ins_tblSig
>>LIKE TAKE the sword and lantern
>>>Sword: Like, taken
>>>Lantern: As if, your load is too heavy.
Error encountered in IAWebSig.clsSig.Create: Last Procedure: sPrc_Ins_tblSig
You may joke, but there are definite differences in shades of black. Just pick a couple black t-shirts out of your dresser/hamper/floor (you DO have a wardrobe composed entirely of black t-shirts, right?)...Lay them next to each other. They're all black, but I'd wager you have all different shades of black...light black, green black, purple black, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
http://www.back2roots.org/View/Strider%20Advert%2C 1
I see 57005 people
That's unpossible!
Remember the trademark of old Nintendo games like Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Nintendo Golf, Excitebike, Kung Fu and many of the original pre 1990 games that were directly licensed by Nintendo rather than other companies (ie. Capcom or whatever) ? They were pixelated previews of the game, and they looked hideous, but still had some appeal.
I always did think that it was good to see those real images rather than some artist's conception of how the game SHOULD look. After all, those games didn't support antialiasing, today's infinite color depths and 3D models that are rendered realtime. Anyway, I kinda miss that trend.
"Wireless : LAN
Yup, I remember selling the folks big-time on the Intellivision over the Atari. I think we were the only ones in our (little) town who had one. The games were lightyears ahead of Atari.
My cousin and I would play baseball -- entire seasons worth -- and keep score in actual scorebooks. Gawd, that was a long time ago. Tennis was pretty cool, too.
If only I still had the console and all those games...
During a discussion with my host, I found out that kidfenris.com won't be back until tomorrow and that I can't upgrade my bandwidth. In the meantime, anyone interested in mirroring the site can reach me at kidfenris@hotmail.com.
In spite of this setback, I'm planning updates to the Gallery of Hideous Box Art, since the eight entries I have (or rather, had) represent just a small share of what's been inflicted on video games over the years. I haven't looked beyond the 8-bit/16-bit era, and I'm still working mostly from my own collection, so there's more to come. Much more.
>>LIKE, WHAT-EVERRR!!
Ron Paul 2012
He's perfect for the part!!!
Observations: Marketing people are a bunch of screwballs in the first place, but put them in a game company, and it's like bringing a hyperactive, hypo-glycemic, ADD kid hopped up on Smarties and Ritalyn into a Chuck E. Cheese. Mix that with an obsessive, "vision"-driven designer with little grounding in reality, and you're asking for trouble.
Not that that was me. No, sir.
In any case, I DIDN'T MAKE THE LIST!!!!!
A rolling stone is worth two in the bush!
Meant Triple Action - Biplanes
Here is an auction on ebay that has a better shot of the box front.
As an aside, isn't Nuon just a feature of some DVD players that so few DVD's took advantage of that it tanked? Slashdot refence here
Never argue with an idiot. They will just bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
This'll never get read, but...
Plastic was created by new-media house Automatic Media, AKA Joey Anuff & Co. Plastic was to be their first custom Slash application (yes, Plastic runs on a highly customized version of Slash). Their intention was to have an in-house team that would sell Slash customizations as a service to websites in need of custom community software. Alas, their timing (if not their business plan) was off, and they went belly-up.
Plastic was purchased from Anuff by former Suck contributer Carl Steadman for a mere $30,000. He resurrected it, and has steadily improved on Plastic's code.
Sorry, not all japanese animation is good. Take a look at the animation on shows like pokemon and dragon ball z. Notice how all their mouths just open and close in the same manner when they're talking over and over. Now that just annoys the hell out of me. Atleast make it look like the person is saying something instead of just flapping their mouth open and shut.