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Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art

Posted by timothy on from the cel-berate dept.

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."

10 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Look at them all before posting GB... by gr0ngb0t · · Score: 4, Informative

    ah - I hadn't yet got to Rival Turf -- that is pretty bloody shocking.

  2. I'm picky, but here goes a few of my eyesores by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ack! Square
    NAPOLEON AT BAY
    Grandia
    Astal
    Alpha
    Guardian Heroes
    Hard Battle
    G1 series-1
    X-Men COTA

  3. BBC game covers? by tedDancin · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  4. yo by leekwen · · Score: 5, Informative

    don't forget this gamespy article.

  5. Never understood this about Intellivision by adzoox · · Score: 4, Informative
    Cover art, packaging, and overall quality was a hallmark of the Intellivision & I think still survives in the newsletters and coverage of art and design from the Blue Sky Rangers at the Intellivision Lives website. So many of the Atari boxes were ugly or were just recycled art because they did so many el cheapo tie in games like ET.

    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.

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    Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
  6. Re:A dying trend? by Lank · · Score: 5, Informative

    The little parody that took the web by storm a few years ago is right here. Click on the two video links in the left bar. Go check it out!

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    Gotta get me one of these!
  7. Re:A dying trend? by usotsuki · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're thinking Master System. Megadrive was quite the same thing (68000 - 32/16bit CPU) as the Genesis.

    -uso.

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    Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
  8. Top 10 Worst Covers by mjjk2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Check out Gamespy's list of Top 10 Worst Box Covers in their Humor section.

  9. /.ed server by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  10. Still not slashdotted by CapnGrunge · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.back2roots.org/View/Strider%20Advert%2C 1

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    I see 57005 people