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Classic Games (Games) Graphics Software Entertainment Games

Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art 247

Posted by timothy 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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Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art More

Celebrating Bad Game Packaging Art

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  • A gallery of images (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:18AM (#6488820)
    Linked to on Slashdot's frontpage... I smell disaster.

    • No (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's just the smell of a server melting under a Slashdotting.
    • I just helped it happen! We killed another innocent web site! :-)

      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)

    by gr0ngb0t ( 410427 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:22AM (#6488831)
    some of them aren't too bad. they look pretty anime-ey, but they aren't too shabby at all.

  • Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:22AM (#6488832)
    Does Windows XP constitute as a game because I hate its art. I also kind of hate it.

    • Re:Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)

      by SirDrinksAlot ( 226001 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @04:10AM (#6489048) Journal
      At least windows is consitantly ugly, when put in perspective its not too bad. Stuff under X11 is unconsitantly ugly. Everything is ugly in its own ugly way. One app is ugly one way, another app is ugly an entirely new way. All verry inconsistant and ruins the entire X11 experience.

      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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:23AM (#6488836)
    While I wouldn't say it was hideous, this definitely seems to be the time to bring up the original box art for Wizards and Warriors 2: Ironsword, for the NES. [atarihq.com]

    Why? Well, for no other reason than that that is, in fact, the one and only Fabio, in silly costume, portraying the main character.

  • A dying trend? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by duffhuff ( 688339 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:23AM (#6488838)
    Having looked at the site before it gets slashdotted I'd like to comment on it.

    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)

      by mrseigen ( 518390 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:29AM (#6488854) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • Re:A dying trend? (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Thats nothing- one time I saw an old game that was just translated from some japanese or something, and the translation was so bad. It seriously went something like this:

        (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.
      • Take of the Nostalgia Glasses, bub. There were just as many shit games back then as there are now. It's simply been so long that most of them have been forgotten. (The same goes for every field of artistic endeavor, including movies, music, television, etc.)

    • Re:A dying trend? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:00AM (#6488921)
      I'm sure there's bad box art for every system out there. Check out this one [lemon64.com] for the old Commodore 64. I don't think the problems with this one end with the box art though...

    • Re:A dying trend? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by KnightNavro ( 585943 )
      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.
    • I'd have to day that ICO, while a great and entrancing game, has got some serious issues with its cover art. [tripod.com]

      Sorry about the pic.. couldn't find a bigger one

    • Difference between then and now (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @05:13AM (#6489153) Journal
      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!
      • Remember the trademark of old Nintendo games like Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Nintendo Golf, Excitebike, Kung Fu and many of the original pre 1990 games that were directly licensed by Nintendo rather than other companies (ie. Capcom or whatever) ? They were pixelated previews of the game, and they looked hideous, but still had some appeal.

        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)

      by moonsammy ( 65351 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @09:14AM (#6489890)
      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. [amazon.com]

  • Judgement (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Some may consider box art almost like garnish etc, on food, even though its not functional, it gives a better feel to the product.

    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)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:28AM (#6488849)
    This image would make a killer avitar.

    http://kidfenris.com/wbface.gif

  • How could they have forgotten... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jay-be-em ( 664602 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:30AM (#6488856) Homepage
    Megaman? I mean it's one thing to make bad box art for a bad game (read: rival turf), but Megaman was a classic.. and the cover art, well .. check it out:
    ack! [virtualave.net]

  • I'm picky, but here goes a few of my eyesores (Score:2, Informative)

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

  • I saw these two (Score:5, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) * <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:43AM (#6488886) Journal
    outside the last Linux convention [kidfenris.com], and they took all of our lunch money, and made it with the Zaurus booth babe!

    (Weeps into hands)

  • has a character that looks like Rosie O Donnel with a sword.

    (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)

    by Xenex ( 97062 ) <xenex@noSPaM.opinionstick.com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:50AM (#6488900) Journal
    I wonder if Tycho was thinking about this [kidfenris.com] when he said that [penny-arcade.com]...

  • BBC game covers? (Score:5, Informative)

    by tedDancin ( 579948 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:54AM (#6488907)
    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 [beebgames.com] (love the boobs!), Frak! [beebgames.com], or even Spycat [beebgames.com] brings back disturbingly nightmarish images from my childhood.

  • Better one.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <nokrog>> on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:57AM (#6488913)
    How about the game that head the best looking box art but REALLY SUCKED when you played it?

    • Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Funny)

      by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:15AM (#6488960)
      Definitely Zork. Great cover art, but the in-game graphics sucked.
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .

      (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)

        by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:48AM (#6489013)
        At first I was like, huh? I'm only 18, and I remember Zork and it had sweet graphics. And then I was like, oh. I remember Zork Nemesis, not Zork....

      • Re:Definitely Zork. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by iapetus ( 24050 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:37AM (#6489457) Homepage
        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."
      • My cousin was one of the original developers at MIT (My minor claim to fame). Do you remember the adversising campaign for Zork back in the day? They would basically poke fun at other games, saying that text adventures unlocked the power of the imagination, which was far better than any computer-generated graphics. How times have changed.
      • ... it's not funny. ;)

        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.
      • Heh! How about Adventure!

        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.

      • ...Zork was an early Infocom text-only adventure game, and was incredibly fun.

        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...)
    • I was impressed with the art to barbarian [mobygames.com] (As a little kid in the 80s), but the game itself was excruciating. Not only was it exceedingly difficult, it just... sucked.

  • Hideous? (Score:5, Funny)

    by myLobster ( 528056 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @02:59AM (#6488918) Homepage

    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)

    by leekwen ( 677248 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:04AM (#6488936)
    don't forget this [gamespy.com] gamespy article.
    • Except, I didn't think the Master System covers were that bad. Their worst ones though were the card games, which never had a graphic at all, just a picture of a hand holding the card.

  • All Your Box Art Are Belong To Us (Score:4, Funny)

    by eaglebtc ( 303754 ) * on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:12AM (#6488953)
    They should write an article about bad translations in video games. Zero Wing would certainly be #1.

  • Never understood this about Intellivision (Score:5, Informative)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) * on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:14AM (#6488957) Journal
    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 [intellivisionlives.com] 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.

    • >Macs are supier in just about every way

      That may be true now, but that definitely was not true before OS X...

    • Intellivision cost more... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by acomj ( 20611 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:10AM (#6489400) Homepage
      The Intellivision was a great game device (we were lucky enough to hve one.) For 2 player games (football /baseball/autoracing/ armor battle) it couldn't be beat.
      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)

        by Creepy ( 93888 )
        Intellivision had some weird overloading quirks.

        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)

          by adzoox ( 615327 ) * on Monday July 21, 2003 @11:54AM (#6490971) Journal
          Good post ....

          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.
    • The problems with Macs is that they are so expensive. A bottom of the line eMac is what, $800? That's too much for most people. That's too much for me too when I look at what I can put together out of parts on pricewatch.com for $800.

      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.

      • I can get a 700Mhz eMac for $599 at the Apple Store right now and at a few resellers - truthfully not figuring in labor to build a computer from parts is not an arguement as "most people" as you say, can't or won't do that. Also, buying a sub $800 computer is foolish at best, you'll be lucky if that's all you end up spending on it. And yes, same arguement applies, WHY wouldn't you want the quality/extra uses even the low end Mac at the slightly higher price provides?

  • Those predate good graphics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:30AM (#6488991) Homepage
    Those are dated, from the days when there was no way the program could look as good as the box art. Now it verges on deceptive advertising if the box looks better than a screenshot.

    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)

    by mjjk2 ( 328266 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:37AM (#6489001) Homepage
    Check out Gamespy's [gamespy.com] list of Top 10 Worst Box Covers [gamespy.com] in their Humor section.

  • Miner 2049er (Score:5, Funny)

    by boomgopher ( 627124 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:45AM (#6489006) Journal
    I remember Miner 2049er had particularly crappy art:

    Image here [mutantes.com.ar]

    (http://www.mutantes.com.ar/images/miner%202049% 20vol%20II.jpg)


  • I dunno about you, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @04:18AM (#6489066) Homepage Journal
    ... the worst cover art I've ever seen is this [slashdot.org].

  • It could be REALLY worst!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by happyhangone ( 599849 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @04:25AM (#6489078)

    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

  • there was Hunt the Wumpus [atariarchives.org]

    Okay well it's not box art, but it's from the days before there were boxed games.


  • /.ed already?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ndogg ( 158021 ) <the@rhorn.gmail@com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @05:07AM (#6489144) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, I have to agree that the "404 Not Found" box cover art is pretty hideous as well.

  • Well (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tetro ( 545711 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @05:14AM (#6489158) Homepage
    I think there should be a list for game packages that are way over dramatized compared to the game. You know what i mean. Those game art packages with some fancy oil painting while the actual game characters consist of 64x64 pixel drawings.

  • lmao (Score:5, Funny)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @05:15AM (#6489161) Journal
    From GameSpy [gamespy.com]

    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.

  • Anybody got a mirror!

  • Not box art, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @06:52AM (#6489367) Homepage
    This one [atarihq.com] is disturbing at a little different level.

    Not as good as that "Cock'em", I'll admit. That's downright creepy.

  • /.ed server (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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. [google.com]

  • The BEST gamebox (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MGrie ( 676464 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:22AM (#6489420) Homepage
    Ultima VII:The Black gate.

    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.
    • Ahh... "deep black" ... much better than that "light black" they use these days..

    • 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.

      From a meeting between representatives of Origin and Electronic Arts:

      IAN: That's "Ultima VII" that's, that's the jacket cover, it's going out across the country in every store.
      DAVID: This is the compromise we made...this is the compromise you made?
      IAN: Yes.
      DEREK: Is it going to say anything here, or here along t

    • Best box, best game.

      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)

    by YoDave ( 184176 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:47AM (#6489741) Homepage
    These games boxes don't have a thing on Taiwanese motherboard boxes. If you want to talk about cheesey artwork, they're untouchable.
    • I think on the cover of my video card box there is a golden bull-man with a golden ring in its nose and horns on its face. And the whole thing is on fire. And there's blue sparks and lightning. And to top it all off, the card is clearly labelled "Golden Sample."

      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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    .
    .
    .
    You bastards!
  • Dead Slashdot, I found the coolest site in the entire world. Please, post it for millions to see and click on and drive into the ground so the site that gave me some enjoyment can be completely wiped off the face of the internet in a few moments. Thank you!

  • Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @12:12PM (#6491105) Homepage
    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.
  • http://www.back2roots.org/View/Strider%20Advert%2C 1

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