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Favorite All-Time Videogame Box Art Rated
Thanks to GameSpy for its feature discussing and rating the best videogame box art of all-time. The author cheekily argues: "Video games have indeed been graced with some wonderful covers over the years, art that you'd be proud to put in a frame and hang on your wall for all to enjoy... Except when girls come over, when it must be hidden in the closet", before highlighting game covers including Pinball Construction Set ("Rather than showcase a typical pinball scene like most pinball games have done, this cover is mostly symbolic"), the non-U.S. cover for ICO ("Impressionistic and surreal, as if it's capturing a moment in fantasy or memory rather than reality"), and DOOM ("Bottom line, this is a classic.") What's your favorite game cover art of all time?
most games I had were just floppy disks with a name written on them..
Altered Beast for the Sega Genesis had a bad ass cover imho... seen http://www.roarvgm.com/COVERS/GENESIS/altered%20be ast-USA.jpg there.
How Jaded Are You?
Of course, the cover of Spellcasting 301: Spring Break is not to be missed either.
I could have pulled better cover art out of my ass. A lot of the "art" is only impressionable due to reminiscence.
Atari had great artwork on their boxes. Actually, they set the standard for others that followed.
Check out Defender, Berzerk and Missle Command
Even Mattel Intellivision (boo, hiss) had some cool artwork.
Article seemed kinda biased to late 80s / early 90s if you ask me.
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
My favorite game art is from Slashdot The Game (C)(TM). It comes with many different gameplay modes. For those who like camping in hidden places, theres snipe mode, where you constantly hit refresh, and then paste in a carefully prepared post as soon as a new story shows up. For those who are into party games, there's the mode where you say something slightly incendiary, or misguided, and try to see how many people you can get involved in the conversation. And, of course, there's always my favorite, try to post something witty or insightful to see how high a score you can get... :)
http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/suspended_mas k/suspended-mask.html
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
I have always been fond of the atmospheric cover art for Wasteland and the naive-yet-groovy picture on the Tass Times in Tone Town box as well as the "artist's rendition" of an LCP on the little cassette case for Little Computer People.
(I'm too lazy to google for links. Be my guest and explore the Internet yourself!)
I will give you a link to my absolute favourite, tough. I love the way it all looks completely different from what I'd pictured in my head, especially the house. I guess Infocom's motto still holds true...
Sentimentality is merely the Bank Holiday of cynicism.
- Oscar Wilde
There was a pretty good rule of thumb in the early 80s, and to some extents it still holds today: how exciting, fantastic and wonderful the game cover is, is inversely proportional to how good the game actually is. I was lured several times by drawings of vast space battles, with sleek fighter craft attacking horribly beweaponed starcruisers, through a haze of laser fire and explosions... only to find the game has a triangle firing squares at a couple of advancing, um, rectangles with legs.
Of course, in those days, you had to use your imagination, which I think lent to more immersive gameplay. Sometimes, though, the gulf between the expectations raised by the game cover, and the actual game was just that bit too wide...
http://www.vgmuseum.com/scans/snes/ff2.jpg/
http://www.vgmuseum.com/scans/snes/ff3.jpg/
Call me a marketing moron but I think this sort of smooth, simple box art is the best way to gather attention against rows and rows (or stacks and stacks) of other video game box art.
Once again Gamespy makes a Top X list, and sucks at it. Nowhere did they mention Top Secret - Hitler's Revival, known as Bionic Commando in the states.
LOL you mean this art
This article I do not agree with. To me, the most beautiful video game 'art' was in the flyers for early 1980s arcade games and their marquees. Sure, there were "cliches" such as glowing text, grids with a perspective deformation, and red-orange-yellow combos, but I love it.
Check out http://www.arcadeflyers.com/ for a gallery of some of the most(IMO) beautiful artwork to have graced the decade. Sure, some are cheesy, but that's where it's at for me.
That knockout of a redheaded Swordswoman on the cover of 'The Curse of the Azure Bonds' (http://atariforce.free.fr/st/images/scans/azure.j pg), with that 'oh, my' specially designed armor! ;)
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
The author can justify the biased towards late 80s / early 90s covers. They were a little more artistic(most were drawn by hand not by computer). A lot of cover art in the early days was fairly over the top. The graphics wern't exactly works of art, so they had to sell the game on a (very) touched up image. Also 80's extravagance came into it a lot. The game was a 320X240, blocky looking mess. Suspension of disbelief was in order just to appriciate that the characters on screen really were heros, monsters, ninjas, Arnie, lamposts etc... . Having a more exuberence cover might help aid the
Nowadays games can have relativly boring covers (Halo,GTA Vice City) by comparison to older titles. They can sell the game on its demos and even the screenshots on the back(although these aren'y usually as representative as they could be). A lot of the stuff is pretty minimalistic as they've all moved to glossy plastic, rather than laminated cardboard. Remember when they came in those big cardboard boxes.
I don't really miss 'Pop art' covers. Might be nice to have one or too, but ultimatly, they were a bit too corney.
May the Maths Be with you!
Parappa 2 was a good choice, as it's a really good showcase for Rodney Greenblat's character designs... but the runner-up was kind of lame. Instead of Um Jammer Lammy, I would've gone with Sam & Max Hit the Road, which features a great illustration by Sam & Max's creator, Steve Purcell.
The shiny pseudo-holographic box made it look like the lich was reaching right for you. Plus it was made from heavy stock cardboard and about a half-foot thick. You just don't get boxes like that anymore...
Hell, I bought the game for $2 JUST FOR THE BOX. It looked black, but it has the heat sensitive color changing gell stuff. A wonderful time indeed.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Don't forget this older /. post concerning Loguidice's "Game Packaging Treasures" article in Armchair Arcade. It goes into more detail about PC game boxes; in my opinion, that's where the real innovation was occuring.