Quantcast

Cover art that over sold the experience

The box looked awesome, didn't it? Oh dear...

Words: Justin Towell, GamesRadar UK

November 30, 2007

Back in the days before the internet existed to help you decide which games were worth your hard-earned cash/not-at-all-earned allowance, gamers often had to resort to judging a game's merits from its box art. That meant the cover had to be the most enticing piece of advertising ever so that imaginative young minds could see themselves taking their place beside Han Solo or taking home the bikini girl on the front of Barbarian. But the experience seldom lived up to that promise.

So we've trawled the archives to bring you the finest examples of box art that oversold the experience. Take a look, see them all, then have a laugh/cry over what we used to spend our time and money on. And how foolish we were to get sucked in by this sort of thing:

Spider-Man (Atari 2600, 1982)

Box art suggests: Spider-Man takes on the Green Goblin, slinging webs that can be sliced by a foe's attack while climbing up a skyscraper, dicing with death during this perilous ascent.

The reality: A mess of squares and colours. And a Spider-Man sprite with (apparently) no neck. Try not to laugh at it, it was probably good at the time.

Above: Spider-Man's had his head cut off by a new foe - primitive technology. The fiend!


 
8 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
maximus13  - 9 months 26 days ago 
First !

good article agree with most
SkullSplitter  - 9 months 26 days ago 
Funny Article!
Jason.Darksavior  - 9 months 25 days ago 
So many awesome covers, so little decent games.
SaKoPeePee  - 9 months 23 days ago 
This is stupid... why?

because all the games are from a time when it wasnt even possible to produce a game to go with any of them covers.

Should have been done with current games
frag  - 9 months 4 days ago 
SaKoPeePee i have to disagre with you since a lot of box art at that time was from actual pixel of the game, like metroid on nes for exemple. kid icarus, mario!!! etc...

Love the battle chest one. I can relate to that.
slamansnikovski  - 9 months 2 days ago 
well actually that's not the king next to the queen on the zoomed'in picture, I believe it's a bishop.
Interesting article, though I don't blame them for making a box art that will sold the game.
slamansnikovski  - 9 months 2 days ago 
lol, sorry for misspelling, dont see an edit feature.
aktirak  - 7 months 19 days ago 
For all of us that remember that era will remember that movies and games had the same hand drawn art.Even movies had drowings in their covers that never appear in the movie for example Escape from NY,the cover present the head of Miss Liberty,if you see the movie the head of Miss Liberty does not appear in the movie. Remenber in the 80's the inosence of our minds was sufficient to recreate the cover while playn with old Atari graphics
Related Games
Xbox 360
Xbox 360
Wii
Wii
Xbox 360
Xbox 360
Wii
Wii
Get A Free Game With PSPgo! Happy Holidays N4G
PSP News from N4G
Dec 1, 2009
500 MAG Beta Codes Up for Grabs N4G
PS3 News from N4G
Dec 1, 2009
Fifa 10 Becomes Europe's Best Selling Game of 2009 N4G
PS3 News from N4G
Dec 1, 2009
Assassin's Creed 2: First 2 DLCs set for early... N4G
PS3 News from N4G
Dec 1, 2009
Zeno Clash 66% Off on Steam N4G
PC News from N4G
Dec 1, 2009