Ashens - Gallery of Shame - 1 June 2019

righty-ho then we shall begin hello and welcome to the norwich games festival 2019 unless you've been here already then welcome back so today's talk will be on terrible video game covers the gallery of shame a nice easy one we can point up bad things and laugh because a lot of things do the rams and you've seen them before but a lot of them i've discovered recently yeah they're worth looking at and buy worth looking at i mean not worth looking at at all so I was nearly late today because of ants I discovered a load of ants in my house and thought this isn't good don't like ants in the house started to look for where they came from still didn't find out and then suddenly realized I've completely lost track of time so I could have been at home now looking at ants I feel I've made the wise decision to come here frankly though if anybody does know the main points of a house the ants come in through do let me know afterwards because I need to stop this thing before it becomes an infestation and they get in the cereal right so video games they have covers you're probably aware of this already I would imagine it's a bit of art they stick on the front the case so you see it in the shop and go ooh and that's probably it used to be more important than they are now because these days everybody's plugged into the internet and reading all exciting reviews and news and getting all the latest hype and that kind of thing and it's really only grandmas who actually go into a charity shop see something on the cover and maybe pick it from that back in the day they were more important when you would go into the the Vick Center or something to see the latest game for your vic-20 and see the cover and think it looked exciting and buy it and realize you've wasted three quid great thing about Vick centers was they would let you play the games beforehand but hey we were all too nervous to actually do that back in the times so anyway I think there are five ins which a terrible video game cover will hit at least one of the first is incompetent is it just badly drawed is it badly put together is it just something that nobody would want to look at is it incoherent is it just a mess do you not know what it's supposed to be do you not know what's going on do you look at the cover and think this looks like a fever dream not like something I can play for three hours of my spectrum inane is it just naff does it make you laugh at it do you want to point at it and go good grief look at that that's not a good selling point this one is purely for the consumer incorrect because the people selling games don't care as long as you buy it which is sort of the main point of a cover but from our point of view you kind of want it to at least be a little bit like the game is you know you don't want a picture of a big space man with a space gun and it's actually about a fairy princess who eats apples or something I'm trying to think if that one's in here no but it came close and the last is inexcusable there's one thing that's totally inexcusable I cover making it an off-putting image you want people to buy it it's in the shop it's quite a lot of money you don't want them to go past and go ah there's a few of those in here so look out for those right I'm going to put my five ins here so I don't forget I probably will know keeps falling over save me HDMI cable yay right so let us begin with the early days of games the really early days where people would write text adventures in their bedrooms and sell them entirely by mail order no hint of an artist that leads us to things like a quest for the golden egg curve 48k spectrum it's a Chad in a tub what is the game about I don't know it's a badly written text adventure like they all were back then frankly and exactly the same for the prisoner now I'm pretty sure the prisoner is the reason that some library somewhere stopped the staff being able to use the photocopier because it's clearly just bits they've cut out of stuff and then knocked a load off I mean it's look at it they tried at least they tried whereas that one is just more sort of trying than anything really there's a lot like this surprisingly quite a few hand-drawn ones as well there was what I desperately wanted to find I saw years ago it's just called something like holiday in Chipping Sodbury or something and somebody who doesn't like a child's drawing of a boat on the front it was amazing and I've never found it again it was for the spectrum one day I will find that picture but not today here's a little example of what happens if you draw your own cover and then your game actually gets picked up by publisher it changes from castle top to castle top yes oh I think what we've got here is Paul Weller being shot in the back with an arrow when he's wearing his favorite hot dog suit I like the way they put the see over the age try and do something a little bit artistic at least and the Atari logo I didn't realize that was the Atari Logan to look two years after a and this is obviously the nice RT when they did for the actual release in the shops the weakness being this one is incompetent this one is incorrect it is a hunchback clone your little going running across the top of the castle there's no nice there's no catapults there's no pond there's no weird horse tattoo and quite get the point of that one but it's a nice piece of art but totally unrepresentative of the game mm-hmm frankly looks a lot more interesting than the game was anyway so you know this is clearly no money this is a lot of money that's not always work like that get an old granny's garden granny's garden many of you will remember from school educational licensed game very expensive particularly this version on the plus three disc and bike an old formation we wrote her name on a typewriter limited I think this is maybe when they were coming up with a story for the Blair Witch Project this is what they wrote on the napkin in the pub it's just like a load of sticks and a woman with needles in her fingers and no eyes let's guess were smile ketta actually the thing that really freaks me out is hello children granny is here also this has been drawn to the ruler yet is in some way not parallel to the top or bottom undetermined come on ghost that's the Raven by the way I think what happened there's no excuse because formation charged a fortune for these things and educational licenses to schools you think that at least give it some kind of color and to this day by the way granny's garden is still a thing you can buy a hideously expensive PC version for your school or club or children you just don't like I found a copy in a charity shop which possibly makes me Britain's richest man anyway this time they had an artist but the drugs man the drugs so I'd like to try and explain what's going on here but this really does fall into the incoherent you've got the human I'd go to monster a boot which is Canadian reference I don't know but um there is no art that stretches on past this by the way if you fold out this is literally it you've got some snakes you've got Mjolnir you've got shards of something I don't know you've got the weird jumping kangaroo a shadow with a hat I'd honestly don't know and none of it comes together because that's in a different style to those I don't really understand this the game itself is basically a manic miner ripoff when you play an Teru the mutant he's a kangaroo he's a bloody kangaroo there's no getting around he's not a mutant and this I don't know he's got weird DNA but I'm gonna be honest in an eight pixel tall creature you don't really get that impression her idea now one of my personal favorites crazy Kong from an Arad software this is used on two games and a rock on on the spectrum and crazy calm for the vic-20 and rock on being one of the worst games ever released well that's another story for another day so King Kong himself sort of drooling possibly dead can't really tell the woman's been kidnapped doesn't care just looking at a nails amazing 80s comb over there that's nice drops her purse for some reason and her umbrella I don't know what's happened here Porky Pig had a child with an alien and he's very angry about having to wear Popeyes trousers so he's smashing a barrel is what's going on here why the bits of the barrel look like bananas we don't know this has never been mentioned that's the bottom of the barrel this is all the bottom of the barrel Oh Deary me the big question here other than who drew it and where they tracked down and punished is why isn't he standing on anything isn't the most basic thing like just draw a line and then paint it black underneath or something don't haven't just floating up in the air near possessed corn oh my goodness anyway and I only saw this one for the first time last week and it's it's got a special place in my heart Kumar software for innocence Erik and the floaters so this basically this had a bad cover on the spectrum then I discovered the MSX version which somehow is exponentially worse so Indiana Jones has had his eyes pulled out he's tucked his shirt into his jeans and he's being attacked by zombified jelly babies not really understanding now does anybody know what Eric and the floaters is or thought somebody might the hint is the Hudson soft be Eric and the floaters is the official conversion of bomberman for the MSX they changed the name from bomberman to eric and the floaters and put a top hat on bomberman absolutely true same for the spectrum and and possibly arm stroke I can't remember but yeah for some reason Hudson software Bomberman now little cute characters no we need a weirdo preferably one who's got for some reason a big poo snaps to his waist fair enough but what do you expect when you're getting the bloody bear from Tekken 2 right your games for you I mean that's what's gonna happen isn't it so this one was it next was introduced to me by mr. Dan node cubed Internet man time zone I'm going for incoherent incorrect as well if you played the game of course do you haven't um possibly towards the inexcusable it is quite off-putting I mean is the dog shooting lasers from the eyes or is it being shot in the eyes whenever it is it's having a bad time of it so the idea is it's supposed to be some sort of robot dog like k9 isn't it and instead it's just like a sheepdog wearing boots it's got like a spark plug or something in its mouth that is that a spaceship is that a lighting rig from the 70s disco I don't know it's clearly Doctor Who inspired not just from the robot dog because it's all set in a Welsh quarry so that's kind of some of that one out but the game is not as bad as the cover would make it look then again what could be so and yeah there is a dog in it so it's not entirely incorrect but just mostly next up professional footballer Dave can draw a bit can we get him to do the cover no no Dave's insane oh no too late so I've written a story to accompany this one nobody knows where the giant ogre Lord came from but they have learned to fear his dead eyes and alabaster fists in order to appease him a ceremony is held once a year where two men are forced to play football against each other until a goal is scored the loser is eaten then his bones are ground up to make bread I'd love to know if that's supposed to be a specific footballer manager goalkeeper escaped lunatic I've got no idea I really must had a high raised version of that no no I don't right next up it's bloody it's something released for the MSX and spectrum only in Spain this is this is a mess Frank so you've got weird cat faced monster well head flying through the air a load of pills scared surgeon syringe and hairy trilobite end of a loofah I've got no idea also totally incorrect it's a game about hanging I had to write this downs it was so ludicrous um a space vampire who has had to come to earth and to constantly feed on blood you probably should have gone somewhere else I don't know made a blood or something yeah he's looks nothing like this he's not a cat he's like a bat with a really long nose I don't know where this came from it's not in the game at all but hey whatever Spanish artist was on duty that day really like to draw blue cats so here we go so next one is a little bit of an evolution how some of these changed over time as they release the game for various different pressings its star trek from salivex this software tone make me let up got it on the screen here as well normally I only show the front so I had to show the wraparound for Spock here who is something quite special I love the way they've got their logo into the screen that's nice tell you I hate about this everything else particularly the colour scheme but so Kirk analog here is horrified because there's popcorn exploding out of the back of his neck apparently they've got the proper Starfleet logo so that's nice and I mean these are based on sort of the movie designs aren't they I think but yeah it's just seeing this image is not making you think hmmm this is one of those boring Star Trek games maybe that's what they were going for it is one of those Star Trek games anyway second pressing notice they got the watercolor guy in to redo the art also change the name to dragon trick it's for the dragon 32 they realized they might get sued I mean the picture enough is frankly enough to do that probably sue them for some sort of psychological harm I imagine well yeah he now just looks a bit kind of bored it's like and action right cut mate can you just just give it a little bit more third pressing totally redrew it they've removed the logo I mean this is added just knit back store this is a lot better I mean you know they've changed everything they've given it proper lines the asteroids now look well they do look a bit like knickknacks but they look more like rocks than the popcorn here the weakness of course is that the face has gone horribly awry in some small manner and now instead of looking shocked he just looks really sassy next up they finally got rid of it for the final pressing and they used all the gray and blue Lego blocks to make that ship gonna ruin it for anybody else I do love the way this guy I don't know is that a hat is that a haircut I can't really tell what's going on with that but finally they did get rid of the beautiful art which is a tragedy on no levels whatsoever Chucky's egg - you know what we were saying about off-putting things being inexcusable yeah I think that's where we are with this so spiders not very nice let's just go round here I like the logo drawn by John beam yeah I mean the first problem is it's incorrect Chucky egg isn't an egg he's a little the game stars a character called henhouse Harry use a small round with a hat like a sort of bowler hat thing not whatever the hell this was supposed to be a cap but it just looks like he's got a big ton on his head the nose the eyes everything about it is grotesque they've done that thing of putting too much realistic detail into a cartoon character and created this unpleasant monstrosity I mean the game's not quite as good as Chucky egg one but it did not deserve whatever the hell this is Deary me pick and choose yeah gonna choose something else I reckon something that doesn't have that on because you know it's gonna crawl off the cover and bite you while you sleep Oh next up hope you're not forgotten put us in this one incompetent yes incoherent no inane yes incorrect not really inexcusable perhaps so somebody's uncle has put his head through one of those cutouts at the seaside full of muscles you know the gun is like the how is he holding them well I don't want to touch it with my hand I'll get dirty and of course they've put the logo in front of his face I mean how did this get out of the door I don't understand oh that face is a bit weird just stick the logo in front of it it'll be fine imagine what it was like being Steve back having written your new game for the Amiga getting a copy through the post of this cover on it I wonder if that's supposed to be Steve back a colour with Steve that looks like damn I wish I'd look that up in there anyway Elite is the opposite of the artist who drew this next up really we shared a high quality scan of this but blood and guts so what is the game about just from looking at this it's the cast of Alf wiedersehen pet we've gone off for a medieval themed weightlifting weekend with their pet cat I don't really know this is quite worrying I thought this bald guy had a fist covered in milk and was gonna like that then I realized actually that's his hand this is a drinking horn quite why what he's drinking his milk I don't that burn so there we go what the game actually is is like a multi-level sports game but all the games are things like have a fight drink loads of beer yay Vikings all that kind of stuff it's pretty bad but again does not deserve this also the cat eyed nobody understands maybe he was drawing it and wanted to get the cat into a muses girlfriend I've got no idea but thanks grieve graphics with you with your logo that looks like an M didn't think that one through did you guys next up if now I'm gonna be honest I quite like this one but most people violently despise it so I've heard of it anyway it's literally drawn with fill tips you can't really say much else there but I mean it's competently drawn isn't it the problem is it doesn't give you much of an idea of the game I mean basically there's a monkey with the frozen shoulder standing near a river and like a female monkey guarding their outside toilet I don't really get what's going on but the games not bad as crash will tell you giving it 80% it's quite a nice little sort of platformer puzzler quite nice graphics just noticed his breasts let's move on skate crazy big budget game this and these guys are horrified as right so he's either borrowed clothes from Gary Glitter or Timmy Mallett or done both and combined the two peas rollerskating in the middle of the road and about to have an accident looking at the people's faces and he's picking up litter like which is kind of the game but guys you need to make it look cool not make it look like he's had to do this because the court told him to after he was caught shoplifting very very odd image I have included though the title screen of the game which I love because it's really well drawn and very odd like and guy is so excited to have attached his green joysticks to a pair of rollerskates this hats flow don't understand that at all by dual of the graphics turret beautifully drawn but very very odd they should have just had a realistic version of that for the know that actually would have been worse next up we get into the soup an entire standard nintendo entertainment system with palamidi x' so this game is about having some kind of migraine induced by psychosis where the dice have come alive and are rubbing their horrible weird feet on your head I don't it's actually like a sort of cross between Tetris and the dice game and is really boring but you you can't say the cover is boring at the very least I would say it's fairly incoherent and it's really off-putting and therefore inexcusable but I mean at least it's not boring right kind of I don't want to look at this table next up it's a classic you've probably all seen it good old Megaman the original American cover I believe for it where they didn't like cartoon characters for some reason so they got somebody with a very loose grasp of physical reality to draw somebody in the world's baggiest most ill-fitting suit I mean I can't really I wrote a description of what I thought was going on from the game just from this cover an escapee from Starlight Express waits to murder someone in a prog rock album cover and it's totally incoherent as to what the hell's going on here but yeah it's very upsweep Adly done as well if you look the top of that doesn't even line up with the rest of the helmet it's like he's just broken it I've got time to fix it guys I'll just have to go on hold this weird gun okay I'm Megaman infamously Capcom from selves actually brought this character back Wheldon bring the gift back I suppose but brought this version to life for a street fighter cross tekken where it's actually a selectable character in the ps3 version I mean they've played out for laughs obviously that interesting I could find no high quality footage of this character at all on the Internet that's how popular it was I even fired up my own copy to Discovery's only in the PSP version and I've got it on PC so that was half an hour of installation I'll never get back but don't worry because now it's time for foot pain simulator I do have a soft spot for these old minimalist Master System covers this one's obviously black belt our Karate game I think what really makes this one the worse though is why does it begin here I mean come on guys you've got to draw it to the end of the cover but yeah it doesn't really give you much of an idea of what's going on probably the worst example out of them all though is Pro Wrestling I mean you know it's Pro Wrestling as it says Pro Wrestling but that's like Victor really hench Victorian ghost simulator nearly headless Nick has finally had the whole thing come off it's very very odd also it kind of looks like he's feeding it as opposed to giving this out I don't know world's first Tamagotchi I've got no idea Deary me but probably the weirdest conceptually out of these I mean is it a simulator for putting a game in your master system I don't know they're just well we've got some cover art yeah but let's just take a photo of the cartridge also if they'd actually put this art on this it would probably be the best I have the whole locks it kind of looked like it's coming and something's happening so they thought no that will be too good I know a way around this Susan's got a camera get around will ruin this entirely so this is a thing that exists I'm guessing your dummy dressed up as the fictional late 80s musician Clint ruined so graffiti man infamously one of the worst games ever released so I thought they'd give it a bad cover two from rainbow arts really expensive game as well if they just literally took like a stock photo over dummy and I suppose the graffiti oh dude hey guys we're gonna spray-paint it and call crazy but it just looks like a dead man I mean the game's awful but give it some sort of movement some sort of dynamism something that isn't this an animator gets like weekend at Bernie's the game god but at least it's better than Vicky so somebody's brother wearing purple socks decided to pose but sadly they didn't have a hammer so they used awful CGI they didn't have a hat so they used awful CGI they didn't have a longboat fair enough again you're talking for CGI but the most inexplicable thing is this why is there another version of him just floating in the sky action also it's nothing like the game the game is just like a weird sort of maze game that's incredibly boring and also has a really weird thing where they cover what sorry the title screen has like a really nice cartoon Viking then the Vikings realistic in the game and then if you complete the game it shows you the cartoon it basically every piece of Arts from this game was designed by a different person none of them would speak to each other and next up there's some dodgy street fighter covers but I think this is the worst one I bought this game full-priced because I'm an idiot so the gods are looking on that they're a terrible terrible first attempt to create humans also there's some overcooked cauliflower because you know why wouldn't there be and I mean the poses are amazing T hawks arm here probably longer than any human arm I think he stole some of the length from Chumley's leg also why are they shooting lasers out of their feet I don't understand this one it's one of those things where they've gotta take the strong images of the characters and give them to somebody who a doesn't really understand how they look like and B can't draw very well his teeth are quite well done you know what I'm gonna say that is the good focal point of this picture DJ's teeth well done you've got something right guys so we had Eric in the floaters then we had official Bomberman for the turbo graphics 16 new American and I think kind of Powell official release the PC engine but yeah this basically some 1950s b-movie astronauts have gone mad and blown up somebody's house like why not keep the nice car - boy is this obsession with trying to make a sort of realistic Bomberman which Hudson soft later themselves did with Bomberman obviously Bob and neo bomb around zero yeah oh I've remembered that existed give me a second it's alright it's gone but sadly this does still exist I don't really understand this at all I think maybe this is what Robocop would look like if they'd made it for 5p in 1963 but hey at least it's got bright colors and the decent logo I'm clutching at straws here also what sort of gloves have square fingers on the end except for like using a touchscreen pocket now I do anyway many of you will know why this one's in here so this isn't technically bad enough on its own I mean it's a little bit too far like really and sort of weirdly medical looking like this is like a pill and this is like some sort of bit of medical machinery or something I don't really know do you and this looks leg actually reminding me now you know in the matrix where they had Neil has the squid thing go inside him like the little shrimp thing and then when it comes out it's like a glowing bit of metal it looks like that but many of you will know why I've put this version of phalanx in because next up this was the Powell cover this was the Japanese cover the Americans got this Oh Soviet hadn't seen it before goods my job here is done who wants to guess how many old men with banjos are actually in this game here's a hint it's less than one yeah the high-speed shooter in space so here's father Christmas with a banjo and I think it's like a cut-off image of a dog or something near amiss well why would you not at least crop that well let's face it that's the least question you asked me at least there is a spaceship in it somewhere but yeah nobody has an answer from why they thought this was a good idea or why this would jump off the shelves and into American children's pockets there's quite a good shoot-'em-up but yeah let's just move on let's just move on to power instinct oh yeah two men made entirely of sinew possibly they're worms that have been compressed into human shape I don't really know also they've got the sweatiest creatures he's crying this guy from because his mouth is escaping his face I don't know but also a little bit of a hint if you're trying to come up with a dynamic image to sell something don't make the focal point or the focal point even the sole of somebody's foot that's not a particularly jolly image particularly if you can't draw fields I mean it's like some sort of gammon joints they've glued toes onto it's just an unpleasant image I've ever seen but not the worst SNES cover for that for me is tough enough hey punk are you tough enough to look at this thing Rob Liefeld drew for us in his lunch break we gave him $50 and colored it ourselves last of the moves to master me for Californian characters to fight each character's at least 20 moves we've had to put this on to try and explain what the game is it's a one-on-one flying game it's the English version of a Japanese game called I think dead dance I'm gonna check I didn't write it down that was clever I think it's called dead dance it's not a bad game it's a Super Nintendo only fighter not as good as Street Fighter 2 I think it's a Super Nintendo exclusive actually but you wouldn't know what the heck it is from this here's a load of words and yet if that's not Rob Liefeld it's somebody doing a very close facsimile of his art style which was popular in the 90s comics at the time but I'll tell you what wasn't popular in 90s comics at the time this man so somebody drew the cover two columns three and somebody else said how can we make this appeal more to middle-aged men how about we cut out a picture of Mick and stick him so it looks like he has excreted a huge pile of gems he's happy about it though I mean you know a the torment is over and be he can settle the Germans but I've never seen something it just looks so stuck out and cut on there's a Twitter account called hang on make sure I get the name right Saiga bits there we are at Saiga bits and had a little competition where they said what's the worst art you can just stick this guy on so he's totally out of context not including the one he came from and but they kind of ruined it by doing the best example themselves first I kind of ruined it because everyone's like man in your example you have hit too high you're not really gonna be that there was another good one where they took the cover to phalanx and replace the spaceship at the top with him shooting along frankly looks so rude I didn't want to bring it along idea anyway there was a game for the Mega Drive called The Terminator the cover is the poster of The Terminator film Arnie with the laser sighted pistol looking very stoic with his sunglasses on then they released it for the mega CD or the Sega CDs it's called in America so yeah I haven't made this up as a joke this literally is somebody has just got the latest copy of Photoshop 2.5 and all the filters also all the cropping that's the weirdest was like this is all formate you've got to get the proper art in there somewhere okay fine ctrl-c ctrl-v jobs are good and I mean so we've got sort of desaturation there a desaturation with the weird filter it's all superimposed why am I still looking at this I don't want to he's bad cat to make everything better and buy everything better I mean far worse it's like a grotesque creature eating a stick of butter because that's what all the Hells Angel cats do they eat sticks of butter you learnt that today don't forget so what goes on in the game he gets drunk and belligerent in a bar great kids love that he hangs out nice and bins within the some sort of dog he tries to climb a ball and falls off and then he jumps up and down on a barstool in front of an audience that's actually in the game bad cat is pretty bad actually comes from Rainbow Arts in the same period they were making graffiti man because they had a lot of anger to work out against the world I think so the game is basically an obstacle course and so they had a game about a hell Angell cat-like right guys it's gonna have to be an obstacle course cuz what else would a Hells Angel cat do and yeah you just like balance on balls and jump from one barstool to another while a crowd it's really weird it's also extremely bad unlike Street small baby so I've forgotten there's no this one and the so street sports baseball pretty good game so I think this is actually the poster art - Kevin bishops next stand up tall I don't really know what's going up like it's that thing of don't be a name don't pick the worst face you can possibly do and then just film some in front of Morgan's baseball Oh Deary me but don't worry they learnt their lesson when they came to release street sports basketball also I just told you a lie I mean this is pretty bad guys but how can we make it much worse oh-ho look like he's being electrocuted by the ball again games pretty good but you wouldn't know it would you what didn't know there's no amiga version well that's something for me to ruin my life with a later next up it's good old hard light I've only just realized he's from looking at this angle he's literally hiding in a bush hello would you like to buy some of mice highs inist hearts it's a thrilling game of action and adventure it's a boulder dash ripoff like a really obvious one and released for the PC I think there's an Amiga version there's some sort of 8-bit version but all the versions have this creature with lamps for eyes and stuck on lips but hey he's got a nice earring that's something it's ready to go straight in the bin so this week on we can see what they were trying to do but failed miserably its tongue of the fat man not a good title in case you hadn't noticed it's also known as Mon Do's fight palace and slaughter sports it's a one-on-one fighting game where the titular mon Dieu also known as the fat man he's not a man so I don't know why it says that he's like a weird alien with a tongue and his stomach hence that and this kind of makes sense of some very strange level if you played the game and if you just see the cover it's a guy who stuck beads up his nose so I think what they're trying to do is these are his eyes those are his eyebrows that is makeup that's run I don't know so you're supposed to look at it as if it's like something with an inhumanly large mouth and those it doesn't work I can't see this in any way than some Twitter's stuck some beads up his schnoz Wow don't do that at home kids it was a running joke in my family that if my dad ever saw a small bead of a proper size or a specific size you'd say look out nose bead some Charles gonna get that shove it up there can't get it down end up in casualty and why because they wanted to imitate tongue of nobody wanted to take over Oh Deary me anyway who likes beaten up members of late nineties punk bands the answer is this is a very famous one but for good reason carnage rally see that they've spoke carnage funny so it's not why she just called it carnage rally guys so is he died dodging out of the way because he's being run over I don't know really it just looks like somebody found a tilt tint furniture in poke Photoshop maybe they did then find a tilt feature something uh worst button miss press ever I think what's actually happened is somebody has beaten him up so badly he's actually coughed up the official Nintendo seal of quality everyone hates this cover do you know the worst thing games really good it's like a really fun micro jeans game and it's mostly set in prehistoric times as you can tell by a cast-off from Green Day and a modern car next up bust-a-move arcade bust-a-move - arcade edition right so we're falling in the inexcusable by being an unpleasant image but it's so stupid so addictive it should be illegal look how addictive this guy is he had to stay up all night playing it it's just a man who's bored don't show a really bored guy on the cover of your game this is like the most basic thing hmm it's a game about bubbles it's quite a fast paced action puzzler it's got the little dragons from Bubble Bobble in how about we cover the cover with boredom bubbles a really unpleasant image that he is in pain he's in pain and his boards just like you can be if you buy Buster pouf or tuned for the PlayStation fortunately they'd learned their lesson by the time the PlayStation 2 version came around so it's a tattooed baby blowing up a bubble that looks worryingly like it's full of blood or something and you can see the game reflected in its sunglasses whose idea was this and are they still allowed out I don't know probably not but this is infamous but for good reason Snow White and the Seven clever boys now the actual game is literally about a woman called Snow White and seven clever boys they're not dwarves in the game they are boys and they're pretty clever but they've decided to ripoff in CGI well I've exceeded call you CGI is an insult to computers frankly but they've just tried to rip off the Disney designs really badly you've got olive oil here cos playing as Snow White's you've got that and then you've got Leary evil upset and shadowed as your favorite dwarves so Felix M Games spewed out a lot of stuff list it's actually just a set of really bad minigames and like a 30 minute crap film about Snow White and not this snow-white it's like she's singing a song there's some clever it makes no sense look it up on YouTube anyway they decided not to follow that up with all their other games again I'm lying to you you've got dead Pinocchio and his rake like fingers together with the dead cricket jiminy with its rake like fingers because hey who wants to you know have to rig all those and move them this is my favorite because that's a shop dummy this this kind of reminds me of somebody famous I can't put my thumb on who so that will annoy me for the rest of my life please don't tell me I'd like to live in my ignorance Deary me anyway get old Phoenix though this is kind of cheating the next one because they never actually released or as far as we can tell even wrote this came for good reason the most unpleasant way you can put forward pacman ever all right guys I'm gonna eat the apple now but I'm really unwell really the weird thing is this game seemed to have never been programmed which means the cover existed first so they could put it in catalogs so does this mean a programmer just got emailed this one day I said write this game he moved to Switzerland was never heard of again I'm presuming the air Fenix games listed a lot of games that were never released but this is the only one I know of with a cover that makes me want to inform it frankly also they haven't even managed to get in the brick texture let's stop looking at lists let's just stop looking at this so you know we had that weird one earlier that was just a photo of the card in America they decided to re-release des games by just putting a picture of the previous release on there giving this weird meta effect I don't is it just to make you feel slightly vertigo in a play I don't know but hey at least it's got the original nice cover on it and the angle in reduced in quality because yes anyway it could be worse it could be Batman who's got a migraine because people won't stop shouting about him about how good is game this come on guys if you're gonna put a game of the year edition banner fair enough ten out of ten Arkham City five of the greatest ever be a bonus content game and we calm down guys my goodness no wonder he's got a nosebleed for a fellow when you've taken what was quite a strong image and just ruined it beyond all bloody recognition anyway now it's time to visit taxidermy farm where everyone is dead and it's their stuffed corpses except maybe this sheep which could be the one that killed them and stuff them I don't know but I mean it's supposed to be a family-friendly title is like a fairly basic farming simulator but yeah who is seeing this didn't somebody just think an email back and say may can you just tone the eyes down just a little bit by like 20,000 percent maybe because that sheep is literally coming out of the cover and trying to eat my face Deary me so we're gonna end with my absolute favorite of all time which I finally managed to get in high resolution and I will be printing it and covering my house with it that's my third alive today so we start with one that's pretty bad but not I would have said bad enough to be included here generally Metro cross home universes are coming up classic so Metro cross is a game about running at very high speed down a chequered corridor in like a futuristic scenario and when you're getting a sensation of speed you're getting the sort of futuristic checkered floor that's all good they've made him look far cooler than he looks he's just kind of a guy in so sports gear in the game but the Americans didn't like this cover all know when this was released on the st the commodore 64 in various other formats in america they were like no no no no this isn't good enough we need a much stronger image I found this on a forum years ago and some D in the forum described it as the world's crappiest image and I think he may have been onto something where do we begin where do we end so cousin Gary who you will remember us the world's most gormless man is apparently bursting out of the cover of an 80 Smash Hits magazine that's kind of a road there are no roads in the game it's set in the future you don't know this I'm just going around the fact that they needed to use another photograph of poor old Gary here because it's just grotesque on someone else who saw this and thought hey I need a bit of that action in my life I need to be a dorm host man falling off a skateboard whilst I really wish they'd put a yo-yo on here actually say it looked like he was at least doing something no I mean I do love the prancing guy here though he's really getting into it and Metro crossing to the max but yeah for me I think this is my favorite as in probably the worst because everything about it is useless all right it's incompetent it's badly put together it's too many styles put together to make it look a mess its incoherent because you can't tell what the bloody hell's going on behind him it's inane can you tell why stop swallowing the lights a cat or get in there in a minute it's incorrect because it doesn't probably represent the game and it's inexcusable because it's a massively off-putting image who saw that and thought that's so cool probably this guy's mom and that I imagine is it for anyway I'm so glad to get that in a high-res format I'll be selling prints of it later in your nightmares so look forward to that and that is all we have for today if you do find any awful their covers just grab my email address and throw it away because I don't want to see them this is more enough thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: Norwich Games Festival

Views: 612,998

Rating: 4.8341541 out of 5

Keywords: Ashens, games, art, ngf19

Id: wFF9O73iwko

Length: 49min 2sec (2942 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ExDSG]

Can't forget the Super Duper Sumos cover which ashames White, East Asian, and Black people all alike.

[u/5benfive5]

I can't watch the video right now, but this will be my pick till the end of time.

[u/ContraryPython]

The one from the 2016 DOOM reboot

[u/amonak]

The old Megaman covers. Yeesh.

Edit: ooh, choice for one I owned? Kingdom of Paradise.

[u/jackedup388]

bust a move 2

[u/C-OSSU]

Bioshock Infinite's cover is probably one of the worst examples of marketing dictating the boxart.

[u/Woods-of-Mal]

I proudly own that terrible ICO box art.

[u/NiceBobos91]

The first Resident Evil PS1 cover

[u/Holicide]

If Phalanx isn't brought up, I'll be disappointed.