Left 4 Dead Official Site

This dodgy diptych of box art features a slightly too muscular Chun Li (c'mon she may be a strong lass, but as drawn here she could throw shot at the Moscow Olympics) a Ryu who looks like he is trying to do long division in his head and typography that looks like the artist was doodling band logos during double geography.

If you look closely, you will see that Ken is striking exactly the same pose (even down to the spray of mud at his heels) when fighting both Chun Li and Ryu at the bottom of their boxes.

Ryu, incidentally, is demonstrating an ancient fighting technique, known in the East as Goatse Hadouken.

[Thanks to MarkMan for the tip]

Anyway, it's a throwback to the NES days of bad box art hiding a good game, complete with budget price tag and NES game shaped disc holder. A work of art. A must-have, yet can't have, unless Capcom does good and places a few up on the Capcom store for us to wrestle over. Hit the jump for another drool-worthy view!

Mega Man 9 Retail Package?!? [Capcom Unity]

Besides, when you've got as good of a game inside as I played at the Games Convention in Leipzig, you could ship it in a plain cardboard sleeve and I'd still be there on launch day to pick up the special corrugated edition.

Believe it or not, we actually wasted breath asking this very question to Valve's Doug Lombardi at Games Convention.

"All I can say is 'stay tuned'", he said with a smile, noting that we weren't the first to inquire about the missing visual gag. As Valve is wont to do, Lombardi didn't elaborate, but it sounds like the finalized written earlier is more of a "finalized." We hope this long national nightmare of squandered puns on Left 4 Dead box art will soon be over.

Even more exciting that the art book, Spark Unlimited is also releasing a 96 page graphic novel detailing Deckard’s fight against the Black Order, written by none other than Legendary comic book writer Mark Waid. See what I did there? It's a double meaning. Accentuated with a capital letter. Is the weekend here yet? Look for the graphic novel to hit around the same time as the game. Look for the box art after the jump!

While you struggle between mildly pleasing and completely stupid covers, keep in mind the special message below the voting section on the website. "Activision shall not be bond by the outcome of the community vote and Activisions decision(s) and selection(s) shall be final and binding." So yeah, vote, but don't expect it to actually matter. Awesome.

Packaging Artwork Vote [Web of Shadows Official Site]

Some of these are so bad they look like LOLz. Utterly incongruous text over the graphics. Like someone developed a game and then they retrofit whatever art was laying around because they ran out the packaging budget. Pure Pinball? That looks more like a concept for Fox Force Five or something.

The Worst Video Game Box Covers, Part 4 [1Up]

These more accurately titled and described Atari 2600 classics are possibly the best box art jokes you'll see all week. Unless there's a Photoshop Phriday on the matter...

Fun From Yesterday! [MightyGodKing via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Several readers tipped us, including Riven, who supplied images from NeoGAF. And Crecente just emailed to say, yup, it's on his box, too. Pictures after the jump.

I'm wondering if the designer Capcom hired couldn't get the hi-res originals from his own client, and googled them off of IGN? No idea, but this is some real stank on Capcom, at least for insiders.

Here is the cover. The IGN watermark is next to the dog's mouth. You have to squint.

Here's a blowup pointing it out.

And here is the picture apparently used to create the background.

Oopsie!
IGN Watermarks discussion [NeoGAF]

Thanks to reader Joe, we have a fantastic mock up of what Japanese gamers will be getting when the game ships in June, one based on authentic MGS4 assets. It's perfect for printing out and staring at for hours on end while life passes you by.

For an even bigger version of the almost real thing, right click, save as, pick a folder. Thanks a million, Joe!

A must-see. More at the link below. Some—But Not All—of the Horrible Motherboard Box Art We Found [Boing-Boing Gadgets]

We're certainly down with the rumored look and feel, but that packaging to accomodate a Wii Wheel that we don't really want or need seems a bit excessive.

Fake or True? [Nintenerds]

We also wouldn't mind the DualShock 3 being renamed "we lied, you do care" or Nintendo's friend codes going by something more catchy like "we want you to play with buddies IN PERSON, get it through your f'ing head already."

You say one thing, but you mean your mother. (VideoGame Box Art Edits 2) [via digg]

I kinda dug Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword on the DS both when I checked it out on the Tokyo Game Show floor and was forced to play it at the Tecmo party later that night, with a duo of developers looking on. It's seems like a fun little game.

And now Tecmo's let us know that the game will be hitting the DS sometime in March and dropped this official box art on is. It's nice to see some solid timing showing up for games hitting early next year. I was beginning to think it was going to be a slow few months.

NINJA GAIDEN® DRAGON SWORD TO SHIP MARCH 2008
The must have action game is scheduled to ship next year

TORRANCE, Calif. December 19, 2007— Tecmo® announced that Ninja Gaiden® Dragon Sword, the highly anticipated action game for the Nintendo DS™, will be shipping in March of 2008. With the intuitive use of the DS stylus, Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword will let players control Master Ninja Ryu Hayabusa like never before.

Developed by Executive Producer Tomonobu Itagaki and the Team NINJA® development studio, Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword features beautifully rendered environments, fast Ninja Gaiden-style action, numerous enemies, and a new story. Various directional movements and taps with the DS stylus will activate Ryu Hayabusa to run, jump, attack, and cast Ninpo (Ninja Magic). Certain combinations of movements will allow players to perform special attacks like the "Izuna Drop" and the "Cicada Slash" which were made famous in the Ninja Gaiden console games.

"Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword brings a new level of gaming action to the Nintendo DS," says Yoh Watanabe, Tecmo's Marketing Manager. "There's currently a demo available on the DS Download Station and I urge everyone to try it out and you'll know what I mean."

[via GoNintendo]

I cannot wait for today's Bungie Weekly Update. This box art speculation is spiraling out of control! We demand answers! Michael McWhertor

Featuring a hulking Big Daddy and a Little Sister hiding in the shadows, the official cover art for the 360 and PC versions of Bioshock is about what you'd expect. Brian Crecente

The Final Fight stumbled upon what they believe to be the box art for the standard version of Halo 3. Seems pretty believable and Amazon is using it as their art for the game, so why not? That reminds me, I need to play some more Halo 3 tonight... and perhaps some Warhawk. Brian Crecente

Halo 3 Box Art Finally Surfaces [The Final Fight, via HBO]

I always like seeing good box art because let's face it, we all buy games based on their cover art, right? Ok, well maybe not, but having a good cover always helps. Here's the box art for Dragon Quest Swords coming out in Japan. Shouldn't be to long before this one comes stateside, but I hope it's a wee bit shorter than the last one. It seemed like it took an eternity to get through. Flynn De Marco

[via GoNintendo]

We're still waiting to see what Tecmo has planned for the GameStop-exclusive Ninja Gaiden Sigma Collectors Edition package, but I've got my fingers crossed for a Rachel wrap around cover with a pop-up insert. Michael McWhertor

Anyway, what's up with those little face tattoos on Optimus and Megatron? And why aren't they looking eachother in the "eye"? Michael McWhertor

Forum member VOOK over at the always lovely NeoGAF posted the PAL box art for Super Mario Strikers: Charged Football. The fact that it's pretty sweet might just make that possible Paper Mario delay all the less heart breaking.

Nah. Brian Ashcraft

Box Art [NeoGAF]

Fahey and I have this rolling debate about whether Virtua Fighter 5 sucks or not. We'd go online to settle it with some well placed kicks and punches, but the game doesn't support that. Don't mind me, I'm just bitter.

If you don't have a PS3 and have been waiting for your VF fix, here's a little something to tide you over until the summer. Sorry, it's just box art. Brian Crecente

We've seen the North American, but where's the Japanese Wii box art? A-squint-and-you'll-miss-it Super Monkey Ball image popped up on Sega's site, and *surprise*, it's all pink and written in Japanese. Granted the Japanese title is different and various box art for games is not really news, but I'm actually a little surprised. I guess all the other early Wii games might have different art, save for Cars, which will look EXACTLY the same. Brian Ashcraft

Uki Uki Monkey [Sega Direct, Thanks creamsugar!]

Namco Bandai just sent out a press release with some new box art. Most of the stuff was dull, like Snoopy vs. The Red Baron dull, but they also snuck in one piece of Playstation 3 box art. I present the Mobile Suit Gundam Crossfire case. A little grey for my tastes, but I still want the game. Brian Crecente

Over at our favorite mainstream gaming news site, 1UP, Kurt Kalata has put up just an excellent history of video game cover art, from the bizarre imaginings of early cover artists attempting to extrapolate a four-pixel sprite into an incredibly detailed painting to the modern disparity between American, European and Japanese cover designs.

I have to admit, I really love those old covers. You can just imagine some random cover artist just pouring the booze down his throat as he tries to do the impossible: take all of Pac-Man's abstraction and trying to sum it up in a picture that tells some kind of story. "Okay, so there's this floating yellow pizza, and he has to eat dots and fruits, and he runs around a maze, and ghosts chase him! Wait! I got it! What if he's a deformed, buck-toothed jogger, the dots are hamburgers, and ghosts are chasing him around a castle? That makes sense, right?" Well, I'm sure it does when you've got a 9am deadline and you're on your third bottle of scotch. Florian Eckhardt

Judging A Game By Its Cover [1Up]

Go Nintendo has scored some pretty box shots of the Japanese Opera DS Browser package. I can't translate those crazy looking Japanese bug cryptograms — that's how Ashcraft earns his booze money — but we notice that 'Opera' isn't exactly being prominently displayed on the box. Heck, we can't even squint hard enough to see that it's being displayed at all Florian Eckhardt

Opera DS browser - DS Lite/DS package shots [Go Nintendo]

Handr 's deviantART Gallery

There is nothing official about the fan-made Revolution Box art at this LiveJournal. However, the box arts are officially cool. Nintendo should consider using the "blue energy line" theme (see image) as it provides a slick foil to Microsoft's "green ball of life." There's two more images after the jump, and make sure you check the links below for all of them.

Thanks Eddie for pointing us to Nintendo Gal.

Revolution Box Mock-Ups [Nintendo Gal]
Revolution Box Art Mock-Ups [Nintendo_Rev LiveJournal]

Really not that exciting, but I suppose this is worth a post. The box art is the same for all versions. Just a close up of Croft's freshly chiseled features.

A poster over at the Gaming-Age forums has put up screen shots from a slew of U.S. Boxart for some very anticipated games including Devil Kings, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Shadow of the Colossus. Check em out and then explain why Tony Hawk decided to go with such a crap cover for American Wasteland.

[GAF]