Ah, the box art story. Ol' R'liable we like to call it, always good for a laugh and sure to inspire conversation about what makes cover art good, bad or legendarily awful. This time though, we're going a different route and focusing on covers that totally botch the simplest rule of box art - it should reflect the product cleanly and clearly. These poor examples couldn't even keep it together long enough to be regular old "bad box ...

Some games just never stand a chance, do they? Hated on from the moment they’re announced for a variety of reasons, they’re critically stoned by journos and gamers long before anyone lays finger on pad. The following titles all fall into this category of pre-release hatred. Whether they betrayed their series’ heritage, alienated PC gamers or their developer simply shouted his big fat mouth off too much; these games loved ...

We recently took issue with the claim that “gaming has not yet had its Citizen Kane”. As you can see, we managed to find 25 games that qualified for that title – and you had plenty more suggestions besides.

We’d have had no trouble whipping up a counter-list of dismal flops. ...

Ever since the advent of Grand Theft Auto III, the GTA series has practically been defined by the iconic art that's accompanied every release. It's adorned every cover and loading screen in the series so far, and when it changes - as it did to reflect the more realistic tone of Grand Theft Auto IV - people take notice. Distinct and memorable, it's added to the series' hip edge and made its characters into fearsome symbols of fearsome badassery, giving them a larger-than-life quality that jumbles of in-game polygons just can't pull off. ...

Crime doesn’t pay. But virtual crime? That does pay. And by the bucket-load. Even by the time the series reached Florida, it was breaking records in a major way, with Vice City becoming the fastest-selling PS2 title ever - until San Andreas beat it. And that’s despite four million Americans pre-ordering Vice City, and a million more buying it upon its release (here in the UK, the Miami Vice-vibed title shifted over a quarter of ...

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