Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art 247
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."
A gallery of images (Score:5, Funny)
No (Score:2, Funny)
Re:A gallery of images (Score:2, Funny)
It happened on my eyes... loading next page was interrupted, upon reload it was already 404 Not Found. You shouldn't underestimate the dark power of Slashdot DDOS!
Hideous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at them all before posting GB... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hideous? (Score:3, Funny)
Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)
OSX's aqua is ugly on a new kinda 3dish level. Its ugly not only because its all blue and striped but because Steve Jobs said its Lick able. Ugh! Yuck! If he wants to lick his screen so be it, just dont give me that mental image. Its the last thing that I need.
BeOS.. Now theres an Ugly OS that wasnt too bad. It was consistantly ugly and not in an in your face ugly sort of way tho. it was kind of an "Hey im ugly but not so ugly you have to stare at me like a car accident" sort of way. Slim and the bare essentials while keeping everything the same kinda cold morgue feeling. Tho that spinning teapot demo warmed it up a little.
Re:Windows XP (Score:2)
"A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Re:Windows XP (Score:3, Funny)
Provided, of course, that its beautiful visage has not been marred by the visual afront that is Bash.
While I wouldn't say it was hideous (Score:5, Funny)
Why? Well, for no other reason than that that is, in fact, the one and only Fabio, in silly costume, portraying the main character.
Re:While I wouldn't say it was hideous (Score:5, Funny)
(cue Tonight Show music) Thank you very much!
Re:While I wouldn't say it was hideous (Score:2)
Please don't mention Fabio... (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Re:Please don't mention Fabio... (Score:2)
p.s. Relevant sig...
Re:While I wouldn't say it was hideous (Score:2)
Re:While I wouldn't say it was hideous (Score:2, Funny)
A dying trend? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:A dying trend? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:3, Funny)
(big spaceship flying)
bad guy: hello you, everything you have is belong to us and now we will kill you!
good guy: Nooooooo!
bad guy: ha ha ha ha!
I couldnt believe it, but I swear it was that bad.
Re:A dying trend? (Score:3, Funny)
Really? That's like this thing I saw once, but it was about bases!
How'd it go... All of your bases do belong to them... Something like that. Anyhow, it was really funny. I wish I knew where I saw that, but it was some obscure site a long time ago. I'm sure nobody remembers it. The strange thing is that I coulda sworn I saw someone wearing a T-shirt with that very same wording on it just the other day! I mean, talk about your coincidences. First someone screws up the translation on a game, and th
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2, Funny)
I don't know if anyone's heard of it or not, but it was really something.
Re:A dying trend? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2)
All Your Base Are Belong to Us!.
Re:A dying trend? (Score:3, Informative)
-uso.
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:3, Funny)
Developer: Jawx
Genre: Arcade, Miscellaneous
Players: One Player
One player? Surely it should be at least two. Otherwise there would be nowhere to actually put the... oh nevermind.
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2)
(this message left here so I can find it again from home.. thanks for your time)
HAHAHAHAHAHA! (Score:2)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:2)
Sorry about the pic.. couldn't find a bigger one
Difference between then and now (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Pixelated art on Nintendo's own 8bit boxes (Score:2)
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 antialias
Horrible PS2 cover... (Score:4, Insightful)
Judgement (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
What're they talking about, this looks great. (Score:5, Funny)
http://kidfenris.com/wbface.gif
How could they have forgotten... (Score:5, Funny)
ack! [virtualave.net]
I'm picky, but here goes a few of my eyesores (Score:2, Informative)
NAPOLEON AT BAY
Grandia
Astal
Alpha
Guardian Heroes
Hard Battle
G1 series-1
X-Men COTA
I saw these two (Score:5, Funny)
(Weeps into hands)
The third cover shown for Valis III (Score:4, Funny)
(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.
The King of No Pants. (Score:3, Funny)
BBC game covers? (Score:5, Informative)
Better one.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Funny)
.
.
.
.
.
(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.)
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Funny)
But what were you actually?
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:2)
English? He's probably American, making his speak one of 1,001 proper dialects.
or
English? He be American, knowhaimsayin. Word up.
or
Chill, man. He's cool.
or
He was like "huh" an I was like "yeah" like that time when I was like "dude" an like it was like all good an stuff.
or
d00d!!!!11!!111
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I prefer radio to television, because the pictures are better."
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:2, Funny)
You know, if you have to explain it.... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:2)
I still have some of the stuff that came with the Infocom games. My all times favorite was the Enchanter series, but I've spent lots and lots of hours playing Zork. If you search on Google there are still copies floating around.
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well... it was fun once I figured out how to get past the ^%@*!$ rug.
push rug
shove rug
lift rug
roll rug
kick rug
burn rug
take rug [...GAAAAA!!!!]
move rug [...oh.]
Ah, my beloved Kaypro II. I still miss her.
Anyway, back to pretending I'm NOT really old. (Let's just say the crystal in the palm of my hand started blinking last year. Nothing to see here, move along...)
Re:Better one.... (Score:2)
Hideous? (Score:5, Funny)
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?
yo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yo (Score:2)
All Your Box Art Are Belong To Us (Score:4, Funny)
Re:All Your Box Art Are Belong To Us (Score:4, Funny)
I highly doubt that. Second place MAYBE, but not first.
Battle Rangers would take #1. Hands down.
Best Video Game Quote Ever. [overclocked.org]
Re:All Your Box Art Are Belong To Us (Score:2)
Never understood this about Intellivision (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Never understood this about Intellivision (Score:2)
That may be true now, but that definitely was not true before OS X...
Re:Never understood this about Intellivision (Score:2)
Intellivision cost more... (Score:5, Interesting)
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..
Intellivision quirks (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Intellivision quirks (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I loved all those quirks.
Two that I can remember:
In Triple Strike: If you got behind a cloud and could manage to hide but not stay straight horizontally, if you made it to the edge you'd have two planes when you came out the other side!
In Blackjack, if you followed your disk precisely horizontally with the dealer's eyes if he started to Shift them back and forth he'd throw you the Ace of spades on your discard deal.
That's one thing I love about what I mentioned in the parent. The Blue Sky Ranger newsletter is probably the only internet newsletter I subscribe to and read full through. It covers those quirks and the design and artwork of games each month I still enjoy playing all the games on my Mac through emulation.
Re:Never understood this about Intellivision (Score:2)
I know people will say that Macs are worth it and so on and so forth, and what a $1000 Mac can do etc. I know that. But most people simply do not see it that way. They just buy what is cheaper.
Macs aren't expensive/ buying cheap is ! (Score:2)
Those predate good graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Top 10 Worst Covers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Top 10 Worst Covers (Score:2)
Miner 2049er (Score:5, Funny)
Image here [mutantes.com.ar]
(http://www.mutantes.com.ar/images/miner%202049
Re:Miner 2049er (Score:5, Funny)
TWW
Re:Miner 2049er (Score:2)
Miner 2049er was a damn fun game though! Played it for hours on my old 8-bit Atari when I was a kid. Though the sequel, Bounty Bob Strikes Back, was even better.
I dunno about you, but... (Score:5, Funny)
It could be REALLY worst!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope that the illustration of this [ataritimes.com] 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
In the beginning... (Score:2)
Okay well it's not box art, but it's from the days before there were boxed games.
/.ed already?! (Score:5, Funny)
Well (Score:3, Interesting)
lmao (Score:5, Funny)
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.
/.ed (Score:2)
Not box art, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Not as good as that "Cock'em", I'll admit. That's downright creepy.
/.ed server (Score:2, Informative)
The BEST gamebox (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:The BEST gamebox (Score:2)
Re:The BEST gamebox (Score:2, Funny)
From a meeting between representatives of Origin and Electronic Arts:
Re:The BEST gamebox (Score:2)
Ever.
I have the whole collection (both original and on the set CD) 1-9.
However, Serpent Isle and The Black Gate were the very best of them, even though Ultima 9 was pretty awesome. That game had such an awesome engine!!
-WS
Taiwanese mobo boxen (Score:4, Funny)
No kidding. Video cards, too. (Score:2)
here [computerhq.com] is a bad shot of the box.
We need to compare mobo/vid card boxes as well as the hilariously bad game boxes.
OMG! You killed the site! (Score:2, Funny)
.
.
You bastards!
Dear Slashdot... (Score:2, Funny)
Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
Still not slashdotted (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mobile Light Force 2 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mobile Light Force 2 (Score:2)
I thought it looked like George W Bush (Score:2)
Sort of makes sense once you see the Planet Of The Apes version.
Re:Wonder boy is that you? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:404 Not Found (Score:3, Funny)
"Dear X,
Today, *you* have been chosen for the daily trample-fest that is slashdot.
You webserver will melt at T minus 10
Thankyou"
h
To sig or not to sig, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the CPU to suffer the links and melted server of a bloody slashdotting or would rather those snot-nosed comments bear.