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Retro box art that still looks awesome today

This thread is great.

It's amazing how I took so much of these awesome box arts for granted as a child gamer.

I came to conclusion that modern day digital illustration and photo manipulation ruined gaming box art forever.
 
We've had Ogre Battle and Ogre Battle 64 but no Tactics Ogre yet? For shame.

h3Psa.jpg
 
The N64 packaging gave me chills at the store as a kid. The 3D effect on the side totally blew my mind.

1426282-system.jpg

1426290-controller_red.jpg


The Japanese box art was pretty trippy in its own way too.

$%28KGrHqZ,%21g4E2eQ7SdtNBNv%29QBujz%21%7E%7E_12.JPG
 
gotee12 said:
The Saturn and Playstation boxart for Macross: DYRL. This side scroller was ahead of its time folks, ahead of its time. And the movie is in my anime top 5.

Macross.jpg

MacDYRLPSX.jpg
take me now
 
The gaming world really lost something when artists didn't have to create their own interpretation of what the game world might look like. Some of these are incredible.
 
grap3fruitman said:
The N64 packaging gave me chills at the store as a kid. The 3D effect on the side totally blew my mind.

1426282-system.jpg

1426290-controller_red.jpg

That really isn`t a boxart that "still looks awesome today", nor back then for that matter.
 
Chaotic-Strike said:
25509-139935-supergodzillajpg-620x.jpg

The game sucked but the epic box-art tricked my five year old self into buying it.
And it wasn't even art created for the game, it was artwork from the poster of Godzilla vs King Ghidorah.
Gvskg01.jpg
 
oQnMz.jpg


Reasons why this boxart is awesome.

1.) Vectorman looks badass. This is also not one of those cases where the guy on the cover looks nothing like their representation in-game.

2.) He's fucking punching the goddamn Genesis logo.

3.) You can't see it, but this cover is GLOSSY and shiny.

4.) You can win $25,000.

This thread is done. Lock the doors on the way out, gentlemen.
 
Seagoon said:
Another awesome Amiga boxart - I'd love a poster sized version of this - but so far my search has been in vain. If anyone has the original I'd love a huge-assed scan of this.

yBaFi.jpg

The same image was used for a Diamond Head album (am I evil), but they cut out the man at the bottom, making impossible to understand how freaking big that thing is. I've never seen the complete version before!

also: Wasteland cover art is amazing. But most covers posted in this thread are beyond awful. Killer Instinct? seriously?
 
danmaku said:
The same image was used for a Diamond Head album (am I evil), but they cut out the man at the bottom, making impossible to understand how freaking big that thing is. I've never seen the complete version before!

also: Wasteland cover art is amazing. But most covers posted in this thread are beyond awful. Killer Instinct? seriously?
I did some googling and found the image is called Heavy Metal Hero by an artist called Rodney Matthews. It looks like he sells posters of this painting but his online store is out of stock at the moment.

http://www.rodneymatthews.com/main.htm
 
I was always disappointed when we went from classy sci-fi and fantasy paintings to "Guy with gun looking off box at angle, preferably with explosions in background."

Edit:

I blame Commander Keen.
 
All this just reminds me how much of a letdown some of the boxart is today. Take God of War for example: the first two games may not have exactly been the pinnacle of artwork but they were intense pieces of art dripping with atmosphere. God of War 3? Just an extreme closeup of Kratos' eye. How fucking uninspiring is that!
 
Man, I really do miss the hand painted backdrops of the old. As someone else pointed out, Sin and Punishment 2 (particularly the US cover) actually delivers the kind of thing I'm looking for. Beautiful cover art. It's a shame it's become so rare.
 
Clearly those of us who were PC gaming in the late 80s and early 90's have had the best box art experiences. :P Some of these N64 boxarts people are posting are leaving me scratching my head big time.
 
I don't really think the Psygnosis boxarts are that great. The artwork is good but they don't seem fitting for the cover of a game. Just looks like they ripped it off some 80's metal band's vinyl album and then put it on their game.
 
depths20XX said:
I don't really think the Psygnosis boxarts are that great. The artwork is good but they don't seem fitting for the cover of a game. Just looks like they ripped it off some 80's metal band's vinyl album and then put it on their game.

I actually think they capture the atmosphere of their games really well. Especially the Shadow of the Beast games.

Did you play any of them?
 
speedpop said:
We've had Ogre Battle and Ogre Battle 64 but no Tactics Ogre yet? For shame.

h3Psa.jpg

That's the best one I've seen on this thread, is a shame there aren't HR scans of the whole art in the net, this is the best I got from tineye

317187142598211627141049205612046d1.jpg
 
krYlon said:
I actually think they capture the atmosphere of their games really well. Especially the Shadow of the Beast games.

Did you play any of them?

Honestly I have not played Psygnosis games from that era so maybe I'm wrong. I've seen what the games look like though. They still look too 80's metal band to me, but I can see why some would enjoy that.
 
krYlon said:
I actually think they capture the atmosphere of their games really well. Especially the Shadow of the Beast games.

Did you play any of them?

Sadly, I bought Shadow of the Beast (the first one) because I thought the cover looked cool and was drawn by the pretty graphics on the back... I don't care what anybody says, that game was a turd.
 
depths20XX said:
Honestly I have not played Psygnosis games from that era so maybe I'm wrong. I've seen what the games look like though. They still look too 80's metal band to me, but I can see why some would enjoy that.

I wasn't even aware of 80s metal when I played these games as a kid.
It might be that seeing similar art on album covers first might change your perception of that art.
I mean honestly, the art is more suited to videogames than music, surely?
 
ScrabbleBanshee said:
Sadly, I bought Shadow of the Beast (the first one) because I thought the cover looked cool and was drawn by the pretty graphics on the back... I don't care what anybody says, that game was a turd.

Yeah, the gameplay wasn't great. Point is, the art suited the graphics and atmosphere of the game.
 
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