Finally, a thread dedicated to the failures of video game box art.

From the early days of inexperience and incompetence:



Through the beginnings of the 'screw traditional art, we've got to make everything 3D now' era:


And up to the modern era of bland soulless FUCKING SHINY METAL BADASS YEAH macho bullshit:



Anything you can think of that deserves to be in this thread?

that drawing of megaman jsut amde me lol a lot...

Damn. I like the way the man's just sitting there with a 'I don't know why I'm here either' expression on his face.



Ico UK, bold, eyecatching and original. It clearly communicates the nature of the game, and looks good while doing it.


Ico US. Ugh.

Also DAMN:

im so sorry

Wrong thread man. This is the the crap box art thread.

There are some games with awesome looking CG 3d rendered box artwork... but before them we had to live with crap like this:



I bet they wished they'd gone with a painted cover after seeing that.

hahaha, here are some really good ones.







I am not so sure the last one is real.. then again who knows.

The first link isn't working for me. The second link though is depressing, knowing that the game could never live up to that title, and it's likely no game ever will.

lol, yeah i cant image how that game would have worked let alone what it looked like on the atari.

I don't even like Mega Man much, but I have to admit that this is awesome bad cover art.

In which you must master the art of tank fighting without tank fighting.

what the hell?

I lol'd.

WIN

lol , i was going to pick that one too, here i got a decent one that has sex written all over it!

"Where the hell are we going?"
"I have no idea. This place is so... featureless. And shut up! Who said you could talk?"

Dr. Wiley actually looks really cool in this one.

EDIT: Also I just realized that Megaman looks a lot like Arian Man from the comics thread. Coincidence...?

Original Pac-Man box art... the fuck?


Original Donkey Kong box art. Featuring Mario, as Thor - God of Thunder.

I guess just doing the covers of romance novels didn't cut it for Fabio.

These were dark days for our hero of time...



And this is NOT why Zelda is so legendary...



And lets not forget the awesome gameplay...




And the unforgettable cut-scenes...





Hand drawn surroundings, that feeling that you're watching a badly animated movie. They surely must've thought SOMEWHERE down the line if any of this was a bad idea...
As for me, this would definitely fit under, "things that I'd be ashamed of, if anyone caught me doing it."

Someone had to go there. As sorely misguided as some of these classicly bad covers are, at least most of them probably took more effort than 20 minutes in Photoshop. Hell, at least some of them have the distinction of looking like some twisted surrealist interpretation of the game world. I'd even give more points to the CD-i Link and Zelda cover art, for although they similarily recycle art, and made up some crazy upside-down triangle-esque symbol (when they could have just used the Triforce), they came 14 years before Orange Box, were games from a nobody developer, for a system nobody bought. Kind of like giving the stupid kid more credit for trying.

The fact that all PC games' cases these days look like they're manufactured for the bargain bin doesn't help (save for the ones that still insist on slapping on the glossy cardboard slip-cover). Then again, with Steam being as successful as it is, maybe Valve just doesn't give a fuck about what their retail copies look like. Now that I think about it, the box art for Episode 1 wasn't too great either, being just an in-game render of Alyx, with some Photoshop effects slapped on (it even has Lens Flare!):

Yeah, I don't get what the hell they were thinking with The Orange Box. It looks unbelievably cheap and nasty. I'm not sure how the hell you market three new games with one cover, but this can't be the best idea they came up with. The boxes for the other Half Life 2 releases aren't so great either. Especially compared to the first game's box art, which was awesome and iconic:


Though I have to give them credit for apparently actually daring to use in-game character models on the box. I can't think of many games that have done that.


I hate picking on poor Half Life. Here's an indisputably fucking terrible cover to make them look better by comparison:

What the..? I'm so glad I got the OFFICIAL version. You can never be too sure with all of the user made replicas out there. Good thing I got the only OFFICIAL version that's out there... Now what exactly do I do?

EDIT: You just KNOW someone spent hours on getting Santa's left foot to stick out over the orange like that. And I'm sure once they finished it they took a copy hope and showed all their family and friends all like, "Look! Look! See! It's sticking OVER the orange, it's not part of the picture but I managed to bring it OUT! I spent 3 hours!!" And then everybody just rolls their eyes, someone gives him a pat in the back and walk away. But we all know that they're thinking he's a retard.


hmm...


Is it a social faux pass to post an edit that's bigger than the actual post?

Wow :o

10 expansions = FAIL



And also, does anyone else notice how Playstation 3 uses the same title font as spiderman?

lol and it isnt even on dvd

She's going to catch a cold, dressed like that in that snowy wilderness.

Yes! Kutaragi "insisted" that it be used for the ps3. Since Spiderman is Sony pictures, they already owned the rights.

A hi-tech computer facial reconstruction reveals that they may have been supposed to look something like this:

she has huge nipples.

Hey now, I loved Samurai Legend Musashi and it's shiny holographic cover art.

As for the Megaman 9 box art, I loved it because they intentionally made it bad for nostalgia, and I commend Capcom for doing it for the fan base.

So do I, but at least in the first one they tried to make him look like a samurai. This one he looks like he's from Jet Set Radio or something.

He looks like a friggin' DDR character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0fjduTzDtU

He practically a DDR character in the first game ;)

lol it was her last rave...