Video Game Cover Art Gets Classy

[Keane Ng]

Video Game Cover Art Gets Classy

The deviants over at the Something Awful forums are showing that with a little dash of retro graphic design and some clever visual puns, game covers can be downright classy.

Taking their inspiration from artist GBS forum [http://www.ollymoss.com/] of Something Awful have Photoshopped up dozens of stylish game covers, for every game from Mirror's Edge to Deus Ex. "Video game box art sucks," user Wonderpants writes in the original post. "The images on the covers aren't chosen for aesthetics; they're there to make the game look badass (or, for Barbie Horse Adventures, uh... cuteass.) So let's make some video game covers that actually look good!"

Some of them look good. A lot of them look fantastic. Though Moss' work sticks strictly to the model of the old Penguin designs, the Something Awful designs seem to draw on everything from classic movie posters and Criterion Collection [http://www.criterion.com/] DVD box arts.

Just a few highlights: MS Pain's minimalistic elephant [http://i41.tinypic.com/oszuvt.png] ready to chomp down on some unsuspecting dwarf miners.

You can look through all of them here [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3067562]. Of course if you're not a SA member, you're also going to have to browse through a ton of ads and pictures of people's grandmas. But it's worth it.

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[SomeBritishDude]

Wow...These are great.

Especially the GTA 3 one

 

[Blind0bserver]

I've been looking through the thread on Something Awful and damn, some of these are downright sexy. If The Escapist is thinking of having another photoshop-esque contest soon a contest line this may be the way to go.

 

[Pseudonym2]

I really liked Brain Wood's work. He always does good covers for comics and games.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

I've been inspired

[spoiler/]

[/spoiler]

Ok, its a bit simple, but still...

 

[Trivun]

Liking those a lot. And the portal one, SomeBritishDude

 

[cleverlymadeup]

they are good and here i was coming in thinking i'd see some pics of san diego

 

[Keane Ng]

they are good and here i was coming in thinking i'd see some pics of san diego

I have many...leather bound books. My house smells of rich mahogany.

 

[Keane Ng]

I've been looking through the thread on Something Awful and damn, some of these are downright sexy. If The Escapist is thinking of having another photoshop-esque contest soon a contest line this may be the way to go.

And what about those of us who don't have photoshop?

Behold, GIMP [http://www.gimp.org/].

 

[Keane Ng]

I've been inspired

[spoiler/]

[/spoiler]

Ok, its a bit simple, but still...

Hey, awesome work, dude. I wish I could do some stuff but am sadly not exactly handy with image editing.

 

[zoozilla]

It's really too bad that the box art for games these days is usually a doctored screenshot with the title plastered above in big letters.

These only go to show that with a little thinking, one can make box art that evokes the feeling of the game, rather than a simple "game is about shooting people" message.

 

[king zettta]

you should see the Xblades cover art

 

[Yog Sothoth]

hmmmm... am i the only one here who doesn't think those are all that great? i mean, yeah, they're ok i suppose, but i honestly don't see anything wrong with the original box art for most of those games....

i'm detecting the fetid odor of elitism.........

 

[matrix3509]

Oh man, that Goldeneye cover was absolutely perfect! Its crazy how you remember such details about a game.

 

[matrix3509]

hmmmm... am i the only one here who doesn't think those are all that great? i mean, yeah, they're ok i suppose, but i honestly don't see anything wrong with the original box art for most of those games....

i'm detecting the fetid odor of elitism.........

To quote someone above me, all box art nowadays is either a doctored screenshot, or just a picture of a main character. There is a reason its called box ART. Some people think that box ART should be ARTy.

All that work put into a game and they make the box art so boring that pissing on it would make it more interesting.

As someone else said, its not really about giving you information about the game, its about evoking a cetrain theme or emotion associated with the game.

 

[Keane Ng]

I don't think all box art is bad by any stretch of the imagination. Some of it's horrible (NTSC Ico, NTSC Ikaruga), most of it is just mediocre, though, and as matrix3509 puts it, doesn't put the "art" in box art at all. It's all functional, but it's rarely stimulating or even interesting.

There are exceptions, obviously like, uh, God Hand is the first thing I can think of.

 

[nova18]

hmmmm... am i the only one here who doesn't think those are all that great? i mean, yeah, they're ok i suppose, but i honestly don't see anything wrong with the original box art for most of those games....

i'm detecting the fetid odor of elitism.........

To quote someone above me, all box art nowadays is either a doctored screenshot, or just a picture of a main character. There is a reason its called box ART. Some people think that box ART should be ARTy.

All that work put into a game and they make the box art so boring that pissing on it would make it more interesting.

As someone else said, its not really about giving you information about the game, its about evoking a cetrain theme or emotion associated with the game.

I agree, looking through that forum thread, so many people made covers that summed up the game perfectly without complicating things. A lot of them used something small that makes the game memorable and uses it as an artistic focus point.

I love them, Im saving a few and will give it a shot myself on a rainy day.

 

[Dectilon]

It's a photoshop thread. It wasn't exactly call to replace current boxart, the guys were just doing something creative with the thread's theme.

I do think it's an interesting issue though. Box art is rather samey nowadays. Sure, it's a divide between the people who aren't trying (pictures of the main characters + title) and those who are (highly stylized, often the game's logo). Nothing much is different beyond that though.

This video is about movie posters, but it's the same issue really:Nostalgia Critic about Drew Struzan [http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/2081-drew-struzan-tribute]

 

[Yog Sothoth]

the one for Goldeneye is little more than a visual gag & inside joke... i don't know that i would've ever purchased that title if that's the box art it had shipped with....