Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Really? Ten More "Classic" Video Game Covers?

A topic I've touched on before are some of the more bizarre and awesome video game cartridge covers through history.  I was inspired to do this by oh video games, but the project has since taken a life of its own.

So, I hereby present ten more video game covers that either boggled my mind growing up or make me look back now and wonder how this ever became a billion dollar industry.





Okay, ignoring how awesome it is that "three player interactive" back then was awesome, let's look at our cast.

A reject from Miami Vice, a guy who won the coin toss to play as Indiana Jones, and a woman who let the guys pick her costume and probably sleeps with her back to the wall every night.

"Profit by the experience" indeed.  Sickos.

That is, unless the woman is the prize (I wouldn't put it past video games of those days) and the third player got stuck as the monkey.  That might explain the expression of rage.


...speaking of "needing to sleep with your back to the wall" I present Gotcha, the video game that appears to advocate molesting women in tiny pink dresses (or is that sleepwear?  I have no idea).  The woman's face screams "this is supposed to be light-hearted fun!"  The man's face screams "just wait until the store lights go out."

The machine, blurred into the rest of the image as it is, seems to be screaming "why do I have two breasts instead of controllers?"


We all remember The Goonies, right?  The movie where a group of kids get to go on an adventure, doing such as adventurous things like "throwing away their inhaler because they don't understand how asthma works," and "assuming a house is saved before you know the value of jewels you stole from a pirate ship" and "assuming you can just adopt a man with disabilities before there's any kind of court case regarding his parents and family."

Well, considering that it was deemed to "out there" to include a scene with a giant octopus I can see why you'd want to stick with that level of realism and incorporate a mermaid.


...

Hold on a moment.


...okay, now I see the resmemb- no, wait, I lost it.

Okay, I don't know who's supposed to be in that game picture, but it isn't Jackie Chan.  Plus, I don't remember Jackie Chan ever hanging out with two characters from Dragonball Z or a talking frog.





Here's the amazing thing, I remember Kwirk.

But I never played the game.  I remember him from The Power Team.

And what, you might ask, was The Power Team?  I'm so happy you asked.

No, I'm sure I heard someone ask.



The Power Team was a cartoon series that aired from 1990 to 1992 because kids in those days didn't know any better.  It starred five characters from "Acclaim video games" (more on this in a minute):

Kwirk (who wasn't an Acclaim game, it was created by Atlus, just published by Acclaim)
Max Force from NARC (created by Williams, ported by Rare)
Kuros from Wizards and Warriors (created by Rare)
Tyrone from Arch Rivals (created by Midway)
Bigfoot from the game of the same name.

Yes, Bigfoot, the monster truck.  And he could talk.

The show was as insane as you could imagine.


You know, I used to really love the Clay Fighter series until I realized something about this cover.  Sure, the rabbit is doing his best Terminator pose, but the snowman?  He isn't looking like a bad-ass.  He's doing a bizarre cosplay of one of the homoerotic guys from the C&C Music Factory Make My Video game.



I've always said that if I get transported to a strange fantasy world and I can only take ten things with me, one of those things would be a comfy pair of jeans.  However, I'd probably pass on the green socks.

Now, granted, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to playing things like Dunegons and Dragons, but I'm pretty sure your mage isn't supposed to be putting all of his points into beefing up his strength and abs.


Remember when these abominations used to be a thing people spent money on?

Look at those soulless eyes, that blind determination to go on rides despite not being appropriately dressed and not giving a damn about safety concerns.  Look at the speed that Ferris Wheel is apparently going that it can blow their hair back.

Everything about this (especially those eyes) just screams "wrong."  Let's get something a bit less disturbing.


 What I love most about this picture is that while it does promote the amount of attitude Mr. "I'm not a role model" Barkley and carries the "spray paint" attitude of a sequel, it's the fact he's biting his lip that gets me.

It looks like he just realized he pulled a muscle, or he's going to miss, or the buzzer is going to sound too soon, and he's preparing to scream the loudest expletive mankind has ever heard.

So, how about something that's both completely awesome and completely 90's?


...I really want to know if it's possible to have these pictures printed somewhere as posters.  Would Staples get upset if I asked them to do that?

Look at this.  It has the most 90's shirt that ever existed.  It has a backwards cap.  It has shades.  It has aliens, mushrooms, giant bugs, a shark BIGGER THAN A SUBMARINE, a strange half-robot with a rocket instead of legs, pyramids, giant spiders walking on...

...man, I don't even know what that is.  A postcard?  A circuit board?

Oh, and it comes with a rebate!

Truly, they should have just stopped making video games after this one, they got the formula exactly right.

1 comment:

Richie said...

Wohoo thats a really hot cover for "GotCha" game lol anyway you guys know any retro cooking games like Papas Games? The ones at http://papasgames.us/... I ve been looking for some old cooking games but wasnt able to find anything