Your favourite cover art?

Pyongyang

I've been checking out some games in my collection and noticing some of the great cover art we used to enjoy many years ago. At the weekend I also bought Night Striker for the PS1, though not for it's cover art, more (for some really odd reason) that I absolutely adore the Mega CD cover art for it.

Go figure how the hell I made that purchasing decision, I don't get it either.

I love the Mega CD cover art so much I'm trying to find a poster of it and frame it if such a thing exists.

It got me to thinking, what games do you really love the cover art for? The games don't have to be amazing, they can be rubbish, this is about the artwork. These are a handful of my personal favourites. I happen to love the games too, even the weird Jimmy Carr game (in no order of preference and yes, most of them are shooting games!).

1. Night Striker (Mega CD)


2. Tatsujin (PC Engine)


3. Darius Gaiden (Saturn)


4. RefRain Prism Memories (PC)


5. Bomber Man Panic Bomber (PC Engine)


6. Wildtrax (Super Famicom)


7. Passionate Hotblooded Athletes: The Diary Of Coach Nakimushi (PS1)


8. Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire (PC Engine)


9. Final Fantasy VI (Super Famicom)


10. Darius R (Game Boy Advance)

paperwork

Not as exotic as your choices, but I've always loved the PAL box art for Turok 2.

DinoRex

This cover definitely compelled me to purchase Barbarian:

Pyongyang

DinoRex wrote: »

This cover definitely compelled me to purchase Barbarian

Forgot about yer wan. Great jabs.

DinoRex

Maria Whittaker. She had her own strip poker game on the C64.

paperwork

DinoRex wrote: »

Oh I had this mess for the Speccy! Good times! Weren't there different poses on the inlay?

Pyongyang

DinoRex wrote: »

Maria Whittaker. She had her own strip poker game on the C64.

That's the one. I thought it was Linda Lusardi. She had great nogs n'all.

Retr0gamer

The NES mega man games have famously awesome cover art. The first game wins it by a large margin though:

Retr0gamer

Pyongyang

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The NES mega man games have famously awesome cover art. The first game wins it by a large margin though:

It reminds me of Tron a bit and the man with the helmet shaped like a bell end on the cover of Missile Command...

Pyongyang

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Had this and the sequel, both full price, when they were first released. Wish I still had them. I remember my free fuzzy wuzzy too! Great games.

DinoRex

Always loved the acronym too!

johnny_ultimate

Every single goddamn game on this list: http://www.cracked.com/blog/24-video-game-covers-that-will-double-your-testosterone/

DinoRex

The covers Roger Dean did for the early Psygnosis was wonderful.

o1s1n

A lot of my favourites are the original artwork for Japanese Megadrive games. Why they westernized these covers I'll never know. The originals were all far far better.

Japanese Alisa Dragoon



Japanese Gunstar Heroes (actually the full wrap around image for this is great)



Japanese Strider



Japanese MUSHA Aliste



Nevermind just favourite box art, this is one of my favourite images of all time.




Check out the weird 3D0 cover for it. They just cropped down to the little red haired dude



And then here's what the Americans decided to do with it. /sigh



The Panzer Dragoon Saga inner box art is also really lovely.



And another great one!

Andrew76

The best box art ever is also one of the simplest - SMB3. It perfectly captures how much FUN the game is. I suppose it helps that it's one of the best games of all time too.

Pyongyang

Nice choices o1s1n. Although I am a little disappointed not to see Darius II featured there with the MD games. That cover art is spectacular. I also like Dangerous Seed and Heavy Unit too.

Not sure about SMB 3. It's iconic for sure, but for me personally it's more an epic piece of marketing genius than quality artwork. Good choice though in that respect.

Andrew76

Pyongyang wrote: »

Nice choices o1s1n. Although I am a little disappointed not to see Darius II featured there with the MD games. That cover art is spectacular. I also like Dangerous Seed and Heavy Unit too.

Not sure about SMB 3. It's iconic for sure, but for me personally it's more an epic piece of marketing genius than quality artwork. Good choice though in that respect.

Have you seen No. 7 on your own list?? :pac:

safetyboy

Pyongyang

Andrew76 wrote: »

Have you seen No. 7 on your own list?? :pac:

Yes. It's brilliant! It has Jimmy Carr on it!

As you know I actually own that game, and it's not as bad as the cover art or, worse still, the very bizarre pages of the manual would have you believe.

Remind me to make some scans of them.

o1s1n

Pyongyang wrote: »

Nice choices o1s1n. Although I am a little disappointed not to see Darius II featured there with the MD games. That cover art is spectacular. I also like Dangerous Seed and Heavy Unit too.

Darius II has a great cover alright. There are just too many good Japanese Megadrive covers to list them all!

K.O.Kiki

Been doing nothing but browsing the Et Tu Gamer galleries for the past 2 nights.

Chock-full of ABSURDLY HIGH RES art.

Ico is still the best ever.


And this image reminds me that I must seek out Last Window one of these days.


@ safetyboy: Hi-5

Pyongyang

The cover art for Ico reminds me of the art for Catch Me If You Can and Exit for some reason.

K.O.Kiki

The main inspiration for it was apparently "The Nostalgia of the Infinite" by Giorgio de Chirico.

Pyongyang

Aww that's boring! Exit would have been a better inspiration. Great game! :pac:

o1s1n

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The main inspiration for it was apparently by Giorgio de Chirico.

Oh wow, after seeing that Chirico painting, the Ico cover suddenly looks very amateurish in comparison.

K.O.Kiki

Looked up Night Striker there.
Wow, fantastic covers!

Retr0gamer

The western and japanese snatcher box art I thought was great:

Retr0gamer

Japanese Dragon Quarter box art:



Japanese cover art for grandia



Western and Japanese covers for Fragile Dreams (started this game and loving it):

Pyongyang

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Looked up Night Striker there.
Wow, fantastic covers!

Yup. I have a copy of the PS1 version in the post on it's way to me. The Mega CD cover is my favourite though. Still looking to make up a poster of it.

o1s1n

I always really liked the western Herzog Zwei artwork. It's a great action shot.

Professey Chin

o1s1n wrote: »

Oh wow, after seeing that Chirico painting, the Ico cover suddenly looks very amateurish in comparison.

Id love a print of it

o1s1n

Mega Chin wrote: »

Id love a print of it

I had a print done of it a while back, came out pretty well. Think it was from Snapfish? They were cheap to get done up anyway, nice glossy finish too. You need a really super high resolution scan of it though to get a decent image.

The resolution of these two were really high, but any bigger than this and they'd start getting blurry.



The only two good gaming images I came across that could go up to A2, possibly A1 poster size were the following.



I think if you wanted to get ICO done big you'd need to scan up the cover yourself and really not hold back on the dpi. All the images I found online just couldn't go above the size of the print in that photo.

Professey Chin

I was talking about the Nostalgia of the Infinite painting but the same still applies :pac:

nyarlothothep

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The western and japanese snatcher box art I thought was great:

They had a comic based on Snatch, it featured in a November/December 1994 issue of CVG irc. It was quite good, it was essentially the detective dude arguing over coffee with this bird. The artwork was superb.

chopperbyrne

I've always much preferred the Probotector artwork and character designs to Contra.

OwaynOTT

I really like this one, by far and away my favourite Street Fighter cover. Looks great on the black box as well.
Been trying for months to get a cheap copy boxed and in good nick. Don't think it will happen.

Morlar

Couple more :
Z Bitmap brothers classic


Cyberia2


Speedball



This isn't cover art but should have been

Mr.Saturn

To the surprise of no one, I'm a big fan of the Earthbound cover. It's rather epic in a very minor way, quite fittingly, with the large imposing Starman craning down and the reflection of a smiling Ness just visible in his visor. Terribly awesome.

DinoRex

o1s1n wrote: »

Oh wow, after seeing that Chirico painting, the Ico cover suddenly looks very amateurish in comparison.

Still way better than this:

Pyongyang

Snapfish

I was thinking of having them print some SHMUP A1 posters for me. Wish I could find an ultra hi res scan of the Mega CD Night Striker art though.

Mr Vengeance

Its not retro, so I'm cheating, but this cover art is making me want to buy this game!




I also adore the cover art to Battle Garegga:



When you see this game in the flesh you wouldn't believe the detail on the ships - truly classic art work.


Real Bout 2 on the AES has one of my favourite covers of all time. Its very evocative - you just want to play the ****ing thing when you see it! Its moody, kick-ass and atmospheric. A great cover for a great game:




Again not retro but its beautiful all the same - the cover art for PAL Okamiden. Lovely! :P




Finally, the coolest box art ever - this dude is just so effortlessly cool. So cool in fact, he looks cool on a pink box!



K' is one of the best character designs in SNK history.


Forgot my all-time favourite cover EVER. Pity I don't own this particular game - maybe some day, maybe on the Neo Geo CD....



If thats not the best cover art of all time then I don't know what is!

TheChief36

Some good ones:



This ones good especially if you know the story:


This one speaks for itself:


This one not so much:

Pyongyang

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They had a comic based on Snatch.

It's called Hentai.

K.O.Kiki

Snatcher Da! - a parody comic

Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy