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Games Entertainment

15 Truly Hideous Examples of Game Box Art 66

Posted by Zonk from the woe-upon-those-who-would-foist-these-on-us dept.
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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15 Truly Hideous Examples of Game Box Art More

15 Truly Hideous Examples of Game Box Art

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  • What no bomberman? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by beef623 ( 998368 ) *

    I'm surprised they left the Xbox remake of bomberman off the list. How many people did that box art let down? I suppose from an artistic standpoint it wasn't so bad, but it was totally misleading.

  • Been there, done that... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Red Samurai ( 893134 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @05:34PM (#18579577)
    Before you jaded Internet soldiers say it, yes, this has been done. Every website and its incestuous sister-daughter-wife has one of these worst-covers lists, including us now.

    Just because they acknowledge it, that doesn't mean they should go ahead and do it anyway.
    • Worse yet: why does _everyone_ and their grandma feel like they _have_ to sound like a hip smack-talking wisecracking wigger when they write a "the worst X" list? They say that if you try too hard to make an impression, usually that's the impression you make. Same here. Most of these lists sound, at best, like a bad case of mid-life crisis or like the "pretty fly for a white guy" kinda teenager, since they mention Offspring: some poser trying to sound artificially cool, hip, funny and all gangsta.

      How about
      • The one for Strider was good:

        Hell, they even got his sword wrong. You know, the sword that's actually a part of the goddamn logo. How the Russian soldiers turned into space monkeys and the Kremlin mutated into a Planet of the Apes set with onion domes stuck on top is something I'm not even going to think about out of some lingering sense of mental self-preservation. It's like the publishers shouted a description to the artist while they drove by really fast and he couldn't make out most of it with all the

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Infe ( 52681 )
        > Worse yet: why does _everyone_ and their grandma feel like they _have_ to sound like a hip smack-talking wisecracking wigger

        It's not really everyone I think, it's just 1up. I like video game podcasts, and I can pretty much listen to any of the various gaming podcasts. But I had to quit listening to the '1up yours' show, I couldn't take it. They don't swear like sailors, they swear like 7 year olds trying to sound like they swear like sailors. Posted on their forums complaining, and they say they tr
        • Hmm, it would sure explain a few things. Thanks for that insight.

          Still, it's not the first "<insert number> worst <insert category>" list I see that sounds, well, like you said, like it's written by 7 year olds. So I had assumed it had something to do with writing that kind of a list.

          Still, you do make me wonder which is cause and which is effect there. Maybe it's just that the same kind of people who sound like that, also feel compelled to write that kind of trolling lists.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      I know what you're all thinking. The "serial killer" thing is all cliched and tired. Well, we went ahead and did it anyway...
  • Curse that Crazy Taxi and Courier Crisis for making boxart that looks like what the game should look like.


    Curse them!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Agret ( 752467 )
      I'd have to agree, the Crazy Taxi boxart looks fine to me. I don't see what's hideous about it? It's just what you do in the game, drive your taxi :P

  • this has been a peeve of mine for a while now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by acidrain ( 35064 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @05:48PM (#18579745)
    Some publishers seem to not understand the relationship between packaging and sales. If you look at a game that was given shelf space but then proceeded to fail spectacularly, it usually has stupid box art and badly done screen-shots. I have worked in games and this has become a peeve of mine, you do everything you can slaving to make the best possible game, and then the publisher creates the one thing it is responsible for: the box the game goes in, and turns out some embarrassing little surprise. Gamers do "judge the book by it's cover."

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by raddan ( 519638 )
      It's funny. Now that I think of it, one of my favorite games of all time, Starflight II, had great box art. I bought the game simply because I loved the original game; no thought as to the artwork. But I do remember how intensely the pictures captured my imagination on the long car ride home from the store in the back of the family minivan (I lived in the boonies of Maine at the time). In fact, when I pictured what my own crew looked like, I pictured the crew shown on the cover [mobygames.com].

      Of course one of my ot

      • In fact, when I pictured what my own crew looked like, I pictured the crew shown on the cover.
        That chick in the back with the bare midriff is pretty hot! I'd buy the game just so I could imagine boning her!
    • I agree to a point. Bad box art might be indicative of bad marketing in general - and might be a good sign of a game financially underperforming. We live in a sea of information though. It takes more than a cool picture to sell things. Most decisions are made from other factors....a kid buys a game cause they play it at their friends, read about it on a gaming site or they hear about it through ads. The store clerk's recommendation probably has more sway than the box cover in prompting someone to pick

  • Where is Planescape:Torment? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MarcoAtWork ( 28889 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @05:52PM (#18579787)
    as much as I personally loved the box art (and that I'd have bought the game even if it had come in a blank cardboard box) I've heard many times that it was one of the reasons why the game didn't sell as well as it could (I bet that if they had put Fall From Grace on the box sales would've easily been 2x...)
    • That tanari'i hussy?! Annah was MUCH hotter!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by balthan ( 130165 )
      It's absolutely the reason I did not buy the game when it was orginally out. It looked like some tribal guy covered in mud and held no interest for me. I ended up playing it later and loving the game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yst ( 936212 )
      Indeed, the decision that the best available option for box art was going to consist in dressing Guido Henkel [askimberley.com] up in crazy blue face paint [askimberley.com] still leaves me at a loss for words. Especially given how much marvelous art was generated in the process of development. What art from within the game wouldn't have been better?
    • FFG? No way. Annah.

      Heck, put Annah and FFG leaning against the Nameless One with Morte floating behind Annah and getting slapped by her tail. That'd do it.

  • Quake3... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @05:58PM (#18579849)
    I guess this is where I complain about Quake3. I mean, id had the gall to rush it out the door for pre-orders to be delivered by Christmas (not a big dealie to me, but I'm sure to at least a few others), and they sent the darn CD and key in a plain white cardboard CD mailer. The gall! Plain white!

    Of course, a few weeks later they realized the erros of their ways and sent me the l33t tin edition of Q3A for Linux....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by XO ( 250276 )
      Yeah, I bought the 133+ tin edition the day it was available, for Windows.

      2 years later, I bought the tin edition for Linux, as it was still in the same store.

      So, I have no idea what you're talking about :P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RESPAWN ( 153636 )
      I and the majority of my friends purchased the linux version in the cool little tin because we couldn't find any Windows versions in the tins by the time we got in to Q3. This is despite the fact that only two of us ever actually ran the game in Linux. Even then, I just rebooted to Windows to play the game most of the time since I never could get the 3D drivers for my Voodoo3 3000 to work correctly under Linux.
      • The V3 cards worked great, as long as you still used X 3.3.x and not the new DRI 4.x stuff.

        I got the Linux l33t tin because, well, my wife loves me, and I use Linux. Least I could do was buy all the games I can/could find that were Linux native....

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by WWWWolf ( 2428 )

      Of course, a few weeks later they realized the erros of their ways and sent me the l33t tin edition of Q3A for Linux....

      My first reaction to your subject line was "hey wait, Q3A Linux version ruled", but at least you acknowledge as much. =)

      Ammo box. You can't get cooler box for a shooter, ever.

      It's one of the few boxes I keep upright on my game shelf to show it off and to cover up the boring row of other boxes. The other two fulfilling the same role are Myth II: Soulblighter (because I happen to like

  • The best this, the worst that... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @06:08PM (#18579943) Journal
    What is the matter with the /. editors? These lists are content free. They're just a way to organise non-information, which you'll forget after about 5 minutes, in such a way that you have to click on a long sequence of pages, exposing you to as much advertising as possible. They are almost the lowest form of journalism. Given that there are many of millions of people out there in the tech world, many of whom are smart and interesting and working hard on cool stuff, surely there's something better to post than this drivel?
  • Alright...I saw the Jacki Chan Stunt master game then I scrolled down......HAHAHAHA Irritating Stick. I have never heard of that game but I laughed for a good 10 minutes after seeing that one....such a retarded premise for a game. Is that Santa Clause holding the stick?
    • I laughed my butt off in the store when that came out. IIRC, the tagline for the game was:

      It's just you, a maze, and a stick carrying 100,000,000 volts.

  • Wow, What a crappy article. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Rizz ( 1319 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @06:11PM (#18579973)
    This was a just plain bad article. Uninspired, filled with lame jokes, and with no real objectivity to it.

    There were quite a few really crappy box art examples in there, yes, but there were others that got in there pretty much because the author didn't like the style the artist used. Hell, this article actually said on two of the entries, "my editor made me put this in here." Lame, lame, lame.
  • 5 pounds of shit does not need to be put into a 20 pound bag. (I know they like ad revenue, but geez...)
  • I loved Strider for the Genesis, but as I kid I wondered why Uncle Joey from Full House (Dave Coulier) was on the box cover. The NES version of the game had a way better cover. The Castlevania DoS box isn't that bad, it is just very cheesy in an anime sort of way.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by anakin876 ( 612770 )
      also - the Castlevania cover art was A PICTURE OF THE COVER ART! That's what was ridiculous about it - the first cover was an excuse to put "konami's best" on it - but then the innner graphic wasn't just the cover graphic - it was a direct picture of the non-konami's best cover. It even had the T for teen rating twice.
    • Couple other observations: the dude on the cover of "Iron Sword" has got to be Fabio. Shudder... the idea of pretending to be Fabio for any length of time makes my skin crawl. And am I crazy, or is that Bono- with green hair- driving the "Crazy Taxi"? The article says the artist also did the Elvis stamp, so maybe he's got a thing for portraying musicians...

  • More bad artwork? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Monday April 02, 2007 @07:44PM (#18580957) Homepage
    Sheesh, some of the early 8-bit artwork from small British companies wasn't that hot. I could probably get some of those old "Your Computer" magazines I got from my Dad, and scan a few examples from them, but I'm too lazy. :-)

    This Timeslip budget reissue cover [emucamp.com] is actually a later example, but it's still quite bad; it looks like they got a child from secondary school on work experience to do it.
  • http://www.lemon64.com/games/view_cover.php?gameID =3309 [lemon64.com]

    How can one forget Cock'in in a list like this? It's like David Cronenburg and David Lynch had a baby.

    -Isaac

  • Again, Misleading Headline (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrew@NOsPAM.gmail.com> on Monday April 02, 2007 @11:53PM (#18582799) Homepage Journal
    There are plenty of articles depicting poor box-art.

    This article however if you read it was fairly interesting in comparing America, European and Japanese box-art for various games, and showing how those changes came about. You can observe evolving changes and cultural differences.

    The article covers both the good and bad, and certainly isn't simply a list of poor covers.
  • It doesn't get any lamer than Fabio, does it?
  • My early gaming years were littered with box art promises. They always used to put the Commodore64/Atari version screenshots on the box but never their crummy port to the BBC Micro.

    Still at least Acornsoft knew what they were doing.

    http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/Elite.jpg [proweb.co.uk]
  • I usually don't even look at the box art. I just look at the title to see if I recognize it and then turn the box over to see what the game is. And then what do I see? Five great screen shots of cut-scenes that give no information whatsoever on what the gameplay may be like. Man, I hate that.

    • Five great screen shots of cut-scenes that give no information whatsoever on what the gameplay may be like.
      Most likely you got a very accurate presentation of the game-play. (See also: Final Fantasy)
  • This [mobygames.com] was the cover for the Activision game "Tongue of the Fatman", released back in the 80s.

    I can imagine being one of the developers of this - you spend long months coding and testing, only to have some idiot in the marketing department slap this lousy excuse for a cover on it. Cripes.
  • If this article, or, an article that heavily resembles it(bad video game box art) was posted not once, but TWICE before, why go for 3?

    Have we honestly ran out of content we can link to on the web? I highly doubt it. Come on, greenlight something a bit more original.
  • Exibit A: El Viento Japanese cover [wikipedia.org]

    Exibit B: El Viento American cover [kidfenris.com]

    Interesting, since the game has huge-eyed stereo-typical anime women in cut scenes throughout, and combines H.P. Lovecraft and the Magical Girl genre (in a non-ecchi way, mind). It's not like anyone who was offended by anime was going to like the game based purely on the cover.

    My theory? The cover was changed so that parents, buying it for their kids, wouldn't pass it by if it was too Japanese looking. (Parents who had the "they bom

  • I'm glad someone was able to type "bad game box art" into google, paste the results, and then get paid for it. Not to mention the fact that there was a nearly identical article from the same site posted on here not too long ago. (Bad 80s/90s box art or something like that)

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