The video game industry's box art has evolved significantly, moving from often elaborate, hand-drawn illustrations that sparked imagination to more minimalist or template-driven designs, with varying degrees of success in capturing player interest and conveying game essence.
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you should never judge a book by its
cover but this is a video game when i
was a kid i had the weirdest games this
was pre-internet time so i didn't know
about chrono trigger or metroid i was
out here getting biker mice from mars okay
okay
and the toy story game and they both had
isometric racing which is not a good
idea why did i have biker mice from mars
instead of zelda
cool box art
maximum carnage this is another one i
had as a kid because a look at that box
man it's so
red there's like a evil demon on there
with a spider-man even the cartridge is
red so you know it's good
as an adult i look at this box art and
all i see is the ljn logo the cover art
for pac-man 2 on the other hand
not not quite as good bronchi the
branches saurus this was intended to be
the gex killer bronchi would teach
little kids about
asthma see his little inhaler there what
they didn't expect was that gex team had
already recruited the greatest designer
in the biz
dontel indigo needless to say the cover
art for gex was exactly correct and even
funnier than the game box art was
generally much better back in this era
you have these beautiful hand-drawn
illustrations even for aerobiz compared
to now where you can only have
black white and a shadow man on the
front it's like the marketing team is
saying to the consumer don't worry
there are no original ideas here super
mario bros 3 is one of the all-time
iconic box arts because of its
simplicity yellow background
cool logo and a very stylized drawing of
mario with these thick lines that
minimalist design was a much bolder
choice back in the day
where covers were very busy and colorful
and was typically reserved for games
that didn't need marketing like zelda
sonic and knuckles mortal kombat halo 2
doesn't even say halo on the front it
just says two
you know what game this is [ __ ]
it's covered too right i forgot what it
was however
you can't apply the same strategy to 3d balls
balls
nobody is going to tell santa they want
balls for christmas
it's hard to pinpoint what makes a cover
great it's got to have that drama but it
can't be too complicated it's got to be
clean but it can't be boring
a truly great work of art has the
ability to transport you to another place
place
entirely and if you listen carefully
[Music]
now look at donkey kong the colors just
jump off the box with these beautiful 3d
models draped in the shadows of glossy
foliage diddy kong is hanging on for
dear life under randby who has this rough
rough
rhino skin texturing this is one of my
favorite covers even though donkey kong
has hot dog fingers
talca glow on the other hand not quite
as good
as the lawnmower man cover art spiderman
for ps4 this is fine
this there he is on a red background but
now let's take the same idea to the next
level wow
look at that spider-man crawling up the
building with his reflection in the
glass and you can see
all the way down to the street such a
great use of perspective
there is a sense of place and scale yet
spider-man remains the focal point
and the graphics here's a grain from
infogrames called
alone in the dark 2. what a majestic
cover let's go ahead and slap a big
stupid-ass stick around there jack is
back baby i don't know what the [ __ ]
that means cover art can be a great way
to differentiate your game in the marketplace
marketplace
if every game has a dude with a gun you
can be the game that has a spider with a gun
gun
and a knife take duke nukem everyone
knows this game is a doom knockoff so to
combat this image
they designed their cover art to be a
one-to-one copy of doom castlevania
until you hit this one no it's it's not
worse than bio freaks right
but it's not on par with dino city now
is it just some default looking anime
characters with
very little attitude it's better than
russell grant's astrology
but it isn't good like donkey kong where
things really start to get messed up
though is on the ds version of the game
because it was already
on the ds but then on the 3ds version
it's really starting to get very little
and then
on the switch version
nobody's going to find this astrology
one of my biggest no-nos are templates
capcom did it
konami did it sega really did it the
master system cover art
this is where creativity goes to get
murdered these are an abomination
imagine your entire collection of games
all with identical
grid backgrounds gary kitchen was one of
the great game designers like tim
clancy that really understood the allure
of mystery
what is the free offer you have to buy
the game to find out that's the genius
of it all who is this man on the cover
art of columns 3
and why is he also on sonic for the game odama
odama
nothing is left to the imagination you
look at the artwork and go okay yes
i understand what kind of game this is
bonus microphone included
obviously this is a racing game titles
will often have different cover art
depending on
which region they are released in in
japan and europe
phalanx is some kind of spaceship game
but in north america
we know that it is actually a game about
an old man with a banjo i think it's a
lot of fun to go through your favorite
games and compare the artwork
to other regions see how they take
different approaches to make the game appealing
appealing
sometimes we're out here whooping their
ass other times we got
[ __ ] smoked like really bad like damn
here is the japanese box art for mega
man 1.
the first thing you are going to notice
is that they spell the mega man wrong
but this is fixed
by writing it in english so japanese
people won't know
the artwork itself isn't bad it's not
great but then you realize it was pretty
not only does the american art hit you
with the capcom template
but rockman also shows up now here's the
european version
what the hell no bonus microphone let's
do a test boom
boom which one of these do you prefer
we're just walking down the hall of fame
now here's a beautiful design by the guy
who does
well that's just green pac-man eating a
what the [ __ ] is changers hey
hiya it's me checkers the last one i
want to talk about
is busta move which is actually a very fun
fun
well-made game and here's the box art
and what's
[ __ ] up about this is that it's
actually a significant
improvement over the box arc for the ps1 version
version
where this guy's eyes are in jail to
bring things
to an even further degree of [ __ ]
there is also a game called
[Music]
so when you ask your grandma for the
cute bubble popping game with the
dinosaur and she is faced with this or this
this
she will probably gravitate towards the
game called super bubble pop [Music]
or she might get bubble bobble which has
the correct dinosaur but is a completely
different game unless they're using this
cover art which is a [ __ ] disgrace
at which point your grandma says [ __ ]
this [ __ ] go ahead and give me uh one
copy of russell crowe's astrology [Music]
[Music] you
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