Hated video game art of the 90s - pre-PS2

[fflip]

That whole period when marketers reckoned that in order to sell a game it needed characters with 'attitude'. Did that start with Sonic or was there some earlier pioneer? I'm not against a well-rounded iconoclast but some of the shoehorning flipped back round to conformity...

Here's the Amiga/Megadrive platformer Bubble And Squeak - in game, the cute pair (who must work together to solve puzzles) are reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes, buddies for life:


But on the Amiga box, the relationship looks a lot more one-sided. The placement of those rock shards tricks my brain into thinking he's holding a knife for a second:


And the advert for the Sega version practically encourages yobbish behaviour:

[boki]

That whole period when marketers reckoned that in order to sell a game it needed characters with 'attitude'.

Game Sack did a pretty neat vid on the subject:

[H-O-W-L]

QI Klaxon - that's not Chris, it's Richard Aiken, the guy you meet outside the snake room. It's taken from a promo comic which follows him through the mansion.



I've always enjoyed covering one of his eyes at a time and letting my brain give him a complete single expression.

But yeah it does look like Chris, unlike his gun, which looks like NOTHING. What is that thing?!

It's the rear-end of an AR15 analogue with the forend of a Browning Auto 5 and a bogus midsection.
It's actually a sloppy paintover/redraw of a frame from Judge Dredd:

[Mister Six]

What's that middle image? A mock-up to show the progression from one image to the next? A mock-up from Capcom? Something else?

[Magnum Valentino]

I'm amazed at this. How long has the Dredd thing been known about?

[H-O-W-L]

What's that middle image? A mock-up to show the progression from one image to the next? A mock-up from Capcom? Something else?

It's an earlier mockup from Capcom, yeah.

The JP cover is a lot more subdued:

I'm amazed at this. How long has the Dredd thing been known about?

I'm not sure but I've known about it since about 2017 or thereabouts. As soon as I saw the mockup cover around then I instantly recognized it as being from Dredd because of the ludicrous gun.

It's by  Bill Sienkiewicz, though I'm not sure if the early mock-up is. Possibly, even probably, but who really knows.

[Magnum Valentino]

I think I remember reading about Sienkiewicz's involvement, but I think he only did the mock-up and not the final cover.

[Mister Six]

It's by  Bill Sienkiewicz, though I'm not sure if the early mock-up is. Possibly, even probably, but who really knows.

Fuck me, mangled Chris Redfield STARS bloke on the official packaging is a Sienkiewicz number? I'm learning so much about this, and I didn't even know there was so much to learn!

[Magnum Valentino]

Yeah I've just looked it up and he's confirmed it was him and that the designs hadn't been finalised by the time he was asked to do it. They just wanted "spiders".

[Mister Six]

Blimey, thanks!

[H-O-W-L]

It was for a preview tie in comic as Six mentioned, hence his involvement.

[Magnum Valentino]

What's odd about it is that his art is extremely distinctive to that point that it should be recognizable, but I'd never have guessed that was him.

For the record I love that cover, from the bizarre background to the gun and especially the absolute fucking bonkers expression on your man's face.

Thinking about getting a high res file printed on a shirt even, is how much I like it.