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And now for the important stuff - Packaging

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DidntKnowJack

Member
There are probably a bunch of you that don't care about packaging. In fact, I'd guess most of you don't. Especially the people who look forward to going all digital. Which is fine. But for the rest of us, I was curious what generation of system you thought had the best overall packaging.

Or what region had the best packaging.

CT Japan versus CT North America
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The best of the current gen systems. The best of the systems throughout the last 30 years.

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I'm personally kind of partial to Playstation 1 packaging. The simple jewel cases. I thought a lot of those games sported some great art.

And the overall winner (for me):
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From generation to generation, all I want is colour in my manual.

Is that so much to ask?
 
I miss getting N64 and SNES games. There was just something cool about opening up those boxes and pulling out a new cart, in its own cardboard packaging along with a plastic covering and a plastic dust cover. They had some weight to it.

Now its like I feel like I'm buying a DVD with a little instruction manual most of the time. Kinda boring.

I guess my vote is SNES for my favorite.
 
Darklord said:
The big boxes were great. They are like Vinyl covers.
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I loved those that opened up at the front. Half-Life and Abe's Oddysee come to mind.
 
I will use this thread to air a huge greviance I just discovered about Canadian PS3 and PSP games: they always omit the inside cover art that the US versions have!!!

They have to print a separate cover with French on it as well as English. That's fine. But they leave out the inside cover art everytime! That's inexcusable.. It's like the whole concept of a translucent case is wasted here in Can.

The Canadian release of FFXIII has no shiny foil cover and no inside art.... It's awful! So I managed to rid myself of my Canadian copy and found a US copy yesterday. In the future I will be importing US versions of PSP and PS3 games if they have the inside art.

A few games I know that are affected by this:
-FFXIII
-God of War 3
-uncharted 1 and 2
-FF Tactics War of the Lions
-FF Crisis Core
and there's more... Every game with inside art, really....
 
i really like how the ps3 packaging has art both inside and out... when you open it you always get a nice surpise... The GOW3 one for example... the one inside is better then the outside :p

N64/snes for me though.
 
My favourites are PAL SNES boxes, with the different colour borders, and the Japanese mini cases for the Gamecube, with cardboard sleeves. They were awesome, wished we had those cases here.
 
EatChildren said:
From generation to generation, all I want is colour in my manual.

Is that so much to ask?
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MW2, which probably had an infinite budget, seemed like it spent about 2 cents on every manual. That shit was unforgivable. :lol

8 pages or so of black and white on the shittiest glossy paper ever.
 
BocoDragon said:
The Canadian release of FFXIII has no shiny foil cover and no inside art.... It's awful! So I managed to rid myself of my Canadian copy and found a US copy yesterday. In the future I will be importing US versions of PSP and PS3 games if they have the inside art.
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Wouldn't it be easier just to go to a Kinkos or whatever and print the missing art from the background? I'm sure you can find it online.

I replaced a couple DVD covers in my collection doing that and they're pretty much perfect when you print them on glossy paper
 
I also liked some of the early PS1 long boxes, like the first Resident Evil. It had some subtle and cool art inside the hard case.

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Not so much the plastic ones which seemed to be carried over from the Sega Saturn. Those hard plastic clear ones.
 
Sorry to go off topic as it were, but this thread and a few comments has reminded me how saddened I am by the black and white bare bones pamphlets we get these days.
 
I'd have to go with the N64. The packaging felt real heavy in your hands and it felt pretty good to get the kart out of there.

The best covers and cd art was dominated by dreamcast titles for me though.
 
Urban Scholar said:
Sorry to go off topic as it were, but this thread and a few comments has reminded me how saddened I am by the black and white bare bones pamphlets we get these days.
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Modern Warfare 2 is the worst offender of this. That thing was depressing as hell.

I guess saving 5 cents across millions of copies just made more sense... but it still sucks.

Overall I enjoy the PSOne days.

edit: Is anyone as butt sore/crank old man as me about the new "eco" boxes that have been coming out lately? They are so cheap and I've found that putting a game in a bag leads to damaging of the paper label. If something hits it at one of the empty spaces, it just get punched through. :(
 
I always thought Max Payne 2 had nice packaging

It was somewhere between the old style PC big box and a DVD case

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El_TigroX said:
Modern Warfare 2 is the worst offender of this. That thing was depressing as hell.

I guess saving 5 cents across millions of copies just made more sense... but it still sucks.
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Or basically any EA published game, majority of them are under 10 pages cover to cover and b&w. They probably shit bricks when they saw they couldn't do that for Dragon Age.
 
Not really generation related, but I truly hate the new 360 cases. I am reminded of the cheapness every time I pull out a disk for 360 or Wii.

PS3 cases just feel quality when you hold them, the extra art inside fleshes out the the feeling.
 
It depends on what you mean by "best". Best functionally, best aesthetically, or best combination of the two? I need both functionality and aesthetic value to consider a game's packaging good.

Anything made out of cardboard or paper automatically fails no matter how good it looks new. It doesn't stand the test of time, so it fails in terms of functionality. That means PC boxes, SNES/NES boxes, and over-designed "collector box" packaging are out. I think PSone jewel case games (non "fancy box" ones) were the best because they were compact, functional, replaceable, and still allowed for quality artwork. PS3 packaging is another favorite of mine because because of the durability and stylish looks. PS3 game cases could stand to be a little shorter and thinner, but I still really like their design.

Current gen: PS3
Older gen: PSone
Honorable Mention: DS, PSP

Colored/white plastic cases like 360 and Wii packaging are going to look dated pretty quickly (they arguably already do).
 
EatChildren said:
From generation to generation, all I want is colour in my manual.
Is that so much to ask?
Click to expand...

Manuals these days are 8, at most 16 black and white pages. I bet that when the next gen consoles arrive in 2012 we won't have any manuals at all, just like DVD and Blu-Ray movies don't have them anymore.
 
El_TigroX said:
edit: Is anyone as butt sore/crank old man as me about the new "eco" boxes that have been coming out lately? They are so cheap and I've found that putting a game in a bag leads to damaging of the paper label. If something hits it at one of the empty spaces, it just get punched through. :(
Click to expand...

I'm quite peeved at these as well. I understand the need for eco friendliness. My main gripe is that before if someone pressed up against my cases it wouldn't be a problem. Now if it happens I have a semi crushed box or crumpled cover art.
 
drizzle said:
Wouldn't it be easier just to go to a Kinkos or whatever and print the missing art from the background? I'm sure you can find it online.
Click to expand...
I don't really like the idea of bootleg art and I wouldn't really waste too much time on this myself. I have done a few DIY DVDs with custom covers, and I enjoyed making those.

The main issue is that Canada is supposed to get the same art as the US, but through a strange quirk of printing French on our edition, we accidentally lose the art. I wouldn't care about the lack of art altogether.. but it's the fact that we lose the art that we are supposed to get that bothers me. The lucky thing is that many Canadian retailers actually get their games from the US distributors, so I don't have to jump through crazy hoops to get the US version, I just have to be mindful about which stores carry which version...
 
I got the Astro Gaming mixamp for Christmas from my wife. That gem has some of the best package presentation I have ever seen. Everything is well organized and tasteful. Packaging definitely has the ability to influence the reception of a product and this was very true when I opened up that gift.

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pics courtesy of: wildcatbbq
 
I don't usually care about packaging, but of the recent releases i think Heavy rain collectors edition with raindrops looked very cool.
 
darkressurection said:
I wish I could get more games in Steelbook cases, I fucking love Steelbooks.
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The Metroid Prime Trilogy box was by far the most beautiful I've seen. I will never get rid of that game.
 
Pretty much standard old DVD cases are my favourites. I dunno why they felt the need to make bluray cases smaller, they look really odd on my shelf next to all my PS2/Wii/360 games. Screw this new eco stuff though, and stacked DVDs are just the devil.

Can't stand anything made of cardboard because it gets damaged and worn too easy. Same goes for jewel cases, they crack too easily.

I have to admit I've got a soft spot for Falcom's standard size PC boxes though. They're unnecessarily wide, but they look really nice on a shelf lined up.

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Mass Effect 2 was the first release that I got the collectors edition for exclusively for the superior packaging. That stock art is terrible. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the interior was done well. The Cerberus code and interior of the case were presented very well.
 
El_TigroX said:
edit: Is anyone as butt sore/crank old man as me about the new "eco" boxes that have been coming out lately? They are so cheap and I've found that putting a game in a bag leads to damaging of the paper label. If something hits it at one of the empty spaces, it just get punched through. :(
Click to expand...
Urban Scholar said:
I'm quite peeved at these as well. I understand the need for eco friendliness. My main gripe is that before if someone pressed up against my cases it wouldn't be a problem. Now if it happens I have a semi crushed box or crumpled cover art.
Click to expand...
That's a fucking lie and we all know it. Less plastic on the case itself means less money spent per copy. And that's a disgrace. What's the point of a box? To protect the disc inside. Well then, why the hell the "holes" are exactly where the disk is? Everything inside that box is protected, except the disk. Make the box smaller (CD-Sized), but stop with this awful solution.

BocoDragon said:
I don't really like the idea of bootleg art and I wouldn't really waste too much time on this myself. I have done a few DIY DVDs with custom covers, and I enjoyed making those.
Click to expand...
Well, I don't mean go to deviant art, get something low res and print it up. You can find the actual art you're missing scanned/bigger version of it that you can cut like the official version. It's no easy task, but can certainly be done.

I know you're pissed more on principle than anything, so not buying the local copy demonstrates how you don't like what happens with it (ie, no inside art). I don't know monetary wise what's the difference between buying and importing, but it's enough down here were I live to consider this alternative, and I just though I should point it out.

darkressurection said:
I wish I could get more games in Steelbook cases, I fucking love Steelbooks.
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Steelbooks are, without a doubt, the best DVD cases ever invented. However, since I live in a coastal area, I always hope they didn't cheap out on the materials, otherwise they will rot/rust in a couple months.
 
Gomu Gomu said:
PC games in the late 80s, early 90s.
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Definitely.

Second would be SNES for me. I love cardboard packaging, gives it more value for collectors and at the time most manuals would be in color and often came with a poster of some sort, be it advertising or related to the game.

Most practical are dvd's. You can easily swap a broken or damaged cover, they're usually all the same size and don't take up too much space.
 
Steelbook cases are my favorite. Case slipcovers are my least favorite. My Metroid Prime Trilogy case confuses me greatly.
 
Kurtofan said:
Cardboard packagings are pretty but they're way too fragile.
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Cardboard's okay when it's like a DVD box set/limited edition, where it's sturdy, thick stock material and there's not a bunch of empty space inside. The Oblivion LE was very classy in this respect.

But as far as NES/SNES/Game Boy/N64/late Genesis stuff went, yeah that stuff was awful, fragile as a motherfucker even when the box had all its contents inside.
That's a fucking lie and we all know it. Less plastic on the case itself means less money spent per copy. And that's a disgrace. What's the point of a box? To protect the disc inside. Well then, why the hell the "holes" are exactly where the disk is? Everything inside that box is protected, except the disk. Make the box smaller (CD-Sized), but stop with this awful solution.
Click to expand...
Yeah, cases the size of the DS ones could actually hold discs fine. DVD cases really are a huge waste of space for no good reason.
 
I don't understand why people like the jewel cases most CD media came in. They were extremely fragile, especially at the hinges, and the covers/manuals inside were prone to fade because of the transparent casing. I wholeheartedly prefer the hard plastic casings in use today because they don't suffer from these problems.
 
jewel cases were terrible.

my favorite recent ones are PS3 cases (non gh versions) and DS cases.

of all time, I'd actually probably say I like DS cases the most. Especially Nintendo published games. Full color manuals, etc.
 
I hate the huge banners on every single game packaging ever. I'd like a small logo that doesn't take too much space away from the artwork. Is that too much to ask for?
 
The Japanese GBA game boxes were much more sexy than their western countparts.

European DS cases are also different to the US/JP ones, slightly fatter, definately not as nice sitting along side the slimmer cases.
 
the best box of all time is that Pirates! one that looks like a book, and when you open it it's got the big fold out map and thick instruction manual. So great.

The old vinyl record-looking boxes were cool too.
 
Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition's boxart was awesome!

I know some people don't like the regular MGS4 boxart, but there's something about it I find really engaging.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are the biggest miscarriages in packaging this gen.
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No kidding. Having a disk in sleeve in a case angered me. There are better options.
 
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