Best Box Art

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I was going to post this as a tangential comment in the Resident Evil 4 thread, but new thread, why not?

I've long thought that the cover for Resident Evil 2 is one of the best in all of gaming.



It's tastefully done, in its own grubby way, and genuinely quite an unnerving image. They could easily have gone overboard, in an attempt to seem edgy and mature, but this is all the more effective for its minimalism. That bold red title, leaping out against the chiaroscuro[nb]that art GCSE finally pays off![/nb] background. It's the only thing standing between you and the creature. He looms at you (and I don't mean he's into weaving) from the inky darkness, only partly framed and slightly out of focus, giving the discomforting impression that you can't escape. Though the details are obscure, you can make out signs of mutilation or mutation and those gleaming teeth and that glaring eye leave little doubt as to its motivation[nb]It's trying to give you a potato.[/nb].

It makes me think of the days of the video nasties, when the films were all the more frightening because of the crappy image quality VHS.

Now you post a picture and waffle wankily about why you wike it. Like it.

[Bhazor]

Its got a windmill in it and a giant lady. tenouttaten.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

This version was way classier.

[captaincockring]

Not 'box' art but arcade flyer.

[Twed]

This version was way classier.

Much nicer, glad the license on their copy of Poser ran out.

[captaincockring]

Sorry if this isn't cool I'll stop.

This is so tasteful.

[captaincockring]

Love that flyer.

[Bhazor]

A crap game but a brain wrapped in barbed wire is still a hell of an image

[marquis_de_sad]

I like the artwork for the Katamari games:





And seeing as we had Ico, we should have the other classic arty console game:



I also always liked this:

[Quote]

[Cerys]

This version was way classier.

Agreed.  That's so much better - inspired by the work of Giorgio de Chirico.  Lovely, lovely stuff.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's a work of art. The American cover is a work o' fart.

[Steven]

[Quote]

Used to love looking at all this crazy Japanese stuff on the shelves of import shops in the 90's. I couldn't afford most of them but used to stare for ages at the shelves of obscure Japanese weirdness and games I already owned, but with vastly inferior western covers. Some of them are bit over-the-top but that only made me like them more. I'll post some more subtle and tasteful ones if I get time but the the balls-out visual overload of some Jap games of the 90's was part of the appeal.

[Benjaminos]

[captaincockring]

I lolled at phalanx..I've got a copy of that...bought it purely on the strength of the cover.

[Bazooka]

[Lemming]

[greenman]

The biggest difference in quality between box art and game must surely be...

[Hangthebuggers]

Geiger's work.

[Sivead]

Kinda like the Master system's 'text book' look for their games.



Though this one always confused me,

[Ron Maels Moustache]

What do you think of when you think about tennis? Wimbledon? The US Open? Green grass courts and athletes at the peak of physical prowess? Or do you imagine a dreary fusion of Chirico-style bleakness and a clumsy photo-referenced drawing of a tennis player that looks like a dying smackhead?



I found out some years after I first saw it that they had actually ripped-off a real piece of Chirico art and just stuck Zombie Tennis Doherty on top of it. What were they thinking? Is the inclusion of European surrealist art supposed to be classy? Baffling. Terrible. I love it.

[Hangthebuggers]

Not a computer game cover - but this always stood out to me



Oh and the poster's post above me reminded me of this

[marquis_de_sad]

Drawn by Jean Giraud aka Moebius. Of course, only Japanese consumers are allowed to look at nice things. We got:

[Van Dammage]

Always reminds me of this

[Steven]

There was a game box I remember seeing in the shop as a kid, on cassette for Spectrum or Amstrad prolly, but it was a very Predator type of rip off thing of a Predatory type of warrior thing on top of a mountain of skulls. Stuck in me `ead but can't remember the title. Anyone?

[Thursday]

In my head there was a Chirico style cover for shadow of the colossus cover, but maybe it was just a fan thing I saw that I'd assume was an official cover.

[marquis_de_sad]

Here's an article comparing Japanese and North American box art, with the latter regularly falling short. Some of them are much of a muchness, but in this one the difference is striking:



I follow this tumblr which is full of scans of old (US) game magazines, and it's striking how ugly a lot of them are.

[Cerys]

In my head there was a Chirico style cover for shadow of the colossus cover, but maybe it was just a fan thing I saw that I'd assume was an official cover.

This type of thing?



_{Edit because I pasted the wrong url}

[thecuriousorange]

Love the font, the yellow, there are no distractions from the the Mario character. It showcases Mario's new flying ability and the figure seems to leap off the box. Superman-style logo and you wouldn't have had that rad yellow five years earlier.