Over the years, much has been made of Mega Man's hideous box art, and of the general pimplyness of game art's 8-bit pubescence. But ere we hurl stones at an older era's ugly glass houses, let us first look to our own, or something!
Like this, for example. Now that is some garish shit. Even the boxes for major games like Metroid Prime 3 aren't likely to win any design awards. Most of the time, they evoke summer-blockbuster viewing more than the subtler experiences their contents (hopefully) provide. They also tend to be stuffed full of colorful characters, when, more often, the unique experience of a game comes not from its characters but from the texture of its world.
Perhaps realizing this, some clever commenter over at NeoGAF started a thread soliciting game box art designed in the vein of Criterion Collection DVDs — playful, inventive, minimalistic, gorgeous. It is — ahem — the best thread ever. So much the best that even I, not much for Photoshop, spent a few hours mocking up some covers myself. Hit the jump for my efforts and my favorites from the thread.
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