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Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jul 21, 2003 01:15 AM
from the cel-berate dept.
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."
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15 Truly Hideous Examples of Game Box Art 66 comments
We've discussed it before, but it's something that bears repeating: sometimes the art on game boxes just isn't very good. 1up has rounded up 15 examples of poor art direction for a smattering of games since the start of the hobby. They've taken some pains to avoid oft-repeated examples of this malady, and managed to remind me again of my favorite space shooter advertised by a man with a banjo. "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial : Interplanetary mission. (PS1) - This is not a game cover. This is what you see when you lose at Mystery Date. 'I got the Jock.' 'I got the Trust-Fund Brat.' 'I got the Elephant Man and a bouquet of alien flowers that laid eggs in my face.' The whole thing is creepy enough without actually commenting on E.T's robot stalker friend hiding in the distance. There's something to be learned here for future game-cover artists: Don't bother actually filling in your backgrounds. That way the cover can double as a superfun coloring book for the kids."
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Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art
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A gallery of images (Score:5, Funny)
Hideous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at them all before posting GB... (Score:4, Informative)
Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday January 22 2003, @07:06PM)
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.
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)
(http://www.theschmoejoes.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 19 2004, @02:56PM)
(cue Tonight Show music) Thank you very much!
Please don't mention Fabio... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.geocities.com/evil_rhinobird)
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...
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)
(http://rav.realitybytes.tk/ | Last Journal: Friday December 23 2005, @12:53AM)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A dying trend? (Score:5, Funny)
Difference between then and now (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday May 24 2007, @01:08AM)
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!
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)
(http://r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s.com/)
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
Mobile Light Force 2 (Score:1)
(http://www.itsnotthenetwork.com/)
--jdan
I saw these two (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.theschmoejoes.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 19 2004, @02:56PM)
(Weeps into hands)
The third cover shown for Valis III (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.opengeek.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday July 07, @02:25PM)
(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)
(http://www.opinionstick.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 09 2002, @07:33AM)
Is that, no it couldn't be..... (Score:1)
(http://eviltechmonkey.com/)
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)
(http://wordpressguy.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 27 2004, @03:35AM)
But what were you actually?
Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.veryshortpier.com/)
"I prefer radio to television, because the pictures are better."
Hideous? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
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)
All Your Box Art Are Belong To Us (Score:4, Funny)
Re:All Your Box Art Are Belong To Us (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.kingnerd.net/)
I highly doubt that. Second place MAYBE, but not first.
Battle Rangers would take #1. Hands down.
Best Video Game Quote Ever. [overclocked.org]
Never understood this about Intellivision (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Wednesday February 01 2006, @08:39AM)
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.
Intellivision cost more... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.plocp.com/)
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..
Re:Intellivision quirks (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Wednesday February 01 2006, @08:39AM)
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.
Those predate good graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.animats.com)
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)
(http://tourneybot.fibsboard.com/)
Miner 2049er (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday November 26 2004, @05:49PM)
Image here [mutantes.com.ar]
(http://www.mutantes.com.ar/images/miner%202049
Re:Miner 2049er (Score:5, Funny)
TWW
Wonder boy is that you? (Score:1)
(http://www.news24.co.za/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 16 2006, @07:53AM)
I prefer the low-res graphics.
I dunno about you, but... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.game-point.net/ | Last Journal: Monday November 14 2005, @09:19AM)
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)
(Last Journal: Friday November 26 2004, @05:49PM)
Okay well it's not box art, but it's from the days before there were boxed games.
/.ed already?! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://supercheetah.livejournal.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 04 2005, @03:24AM)
Well (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://wolf.webcruiser.org/index.php?ref=70367)
lmao (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday December 22 2003, @01:52PM)
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)
(Last Journal: Thursday May 22 2003, @06:59AM)
Not box art, but... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://goldspider.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 18 2005, @10:54AM)
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)
(http://www.argel.de/)
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.
Could we change (Score:1)
(http://www.thezees.net/)
Taiwanese mobo boxen (Score:4, Funny)
(http://example.org/)
OMG! You killed the site! (Score:2, Funny)
.
.
You bastards!
Dear Slashdot... (Score:2, Funny)
Designers don't get no respect (Score:1)
(http://akatsuki.co.uk/)
Classic Video Games to Film?!? (Score:1)
Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.innoscience.net/)
Did anyone manage to mirror the site? (Score:1)
Still not slashdotted (Score:2, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
A word from the site's creator (Score:1)
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.
I illustrated some box art once... (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Wednesday February 08 2006, @03:47AM)
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!!!!!
Re:404 Not Found (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.badstep.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 30 2003, @06:04AM)
"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.