Terrible game covers

[Dark Sky]

And I'll end on what something which looks to be in horribly bad taste:

What does it mean by "simulator"?  At least (the excellent) STALKER went down the "we're adapting a Russian art movie, honest" route.

Edit: He's definitely enjoying this way too much.

All the players are men, I notice.  You wouldn't get that in a modern volleyball game.

[Dark Sky]

Oh, and I found this article collecting a whole host of bad video game covers, with some faintly amusing write up for each one.

http://www.ugo.com/games/wtf-video-game-box-covers?page=1

[Zetetic]

What does it mean by "simulator"?

It means it's a Nuclear Powerplant Simulator, in the same sense as "Microsoft Flight Simulator"; you fiddle with valves and control rods and so on.
As far as I can see, no-one's actually built a really detailed RBMK-1000 simulator in the game sense.

[Dark Sky]

I meant to ask what it was simulating, exactly.  A nuclear meltdown and explosion?  You get to play a person dying of radiation poisoning?

[Blumf]

Back in the 80s every other game released was titled in the form 'X Simulator', or 'Advanced X Simulator' if it was a Codemasters release.

[Zetetic]

I meant to ask what it was simulating, exactly.  A nuclear meltdown and explosion?  You get to play a person dying of radiation poisoning?

Depends how bad you are at your simulated job I think.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I meant to ask what it was simulating, exactly.  A nuclear meltdown and explosion?  You get to play a person dying of radiation poisoning?

If it's anything like the one I remember playing it'd be a nighmarishly complex and impenetrable board of knobs and dials with a couple of windows showing the various states of the constituents of a nuclear power plant and you're tasked with keeping it stable, which you inevitably won't be able to either from bafflement or not giving a fuck cos it's boring as hell, so yes, meltdowns/explosions probably.

All the players are men, I notice.  You wouldn't get that in a modern volleyball game.

I'd like to see a chart plotting the improvements in graphics over time against the number of female leads. I reckon as the norks and arses get more graphically impressive the lady quotient goes up.

(Completely offtopic, but my 1 year old just looked at the screen and said "taddy" while pointing at BigJack's avatar)

Taddy requires the blood of children, he is pleased to have a fan.

[Default to the negative]

I bought this second-hand when the Playstation was quite new and there weren't many titles out. I traded in a much better game against the cost, because I was a stupid and wasteful child. This is not the cover I had, it's a similiar but slightly worse Japanese version with a blurb in the bottom-right which, in a somewhat defensive tone, confronts us with two questions no half-decent game would ever need to ask, then, seeing that we're not impressed, gives in and frankly admits that yes, it's rubbish and you should pray you never have to play it.

Look at his brow. Isn't it cool? Don't you wish you had a big manly brow like that? Well, now you can BE THAT MAN because I've brought the existence of Lone Soldier to your attention.

90s computer art was a necessary step but also an unprecedented aesthetic low point. The tackiest, ugliest shit of all time. Around the same time this came out, there was a computer-animated series called Reboot which looked a bit like this game, which is to say that it looked like vomit. It should all be burned but the internet will ensure that future generations have access to and look down on us for it forever.

[mcbpete]

Yeah the early use of front cover CGI really has dated quite badly. One that immediately springs to mind is this poorly rendered monstrosity:

[Tommy Pickles]

[thecuriousorange]

As seen in the photoshop disasters thread: