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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."
some of them aren't too bad. they look pretty anime-ey, but they aren't too shabby at all.
The only real dying trend showcased in this site is that of quality games (except for Rival Turf). I'd still rather have a kick-ass game than the shit they're pumping out today with nice box art on it.
It could be that newer systems are making the artists job easier. I'm glad it wasn't me trying to make a cover for a game back in the days of the NES. Trying to do an artists impression of a couple blurry pixels probley isn't an easy job.
The mega drive was an 8 bit precursor to the genesis, not the same thing at all.
I can't believe you missed his joke (he was being sarcastic, because every man, woman, and child alive has seen AYBABTU), and you get modded up funny for being so clueless. Are they laughing with you, or just as clueless?
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.
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 have to disagree with this one, and present in evidence the words of the caretaker at my old school:
"I prefer radio to television, because the pictures are better."
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
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.
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