7 Times Epic Video Game Box Art Wildly Overpromised
When I was growing up, the first thing I looked at before buying a video game was the box art. At the time it was the only real way to judge what a game might be like. If the box art was cool, I'd be more enticed to buy the game. I got burned a few times, but what can ya do! I would just grudgingly play the games feeling like I got ripped off because the box art was too cool. You can check out fifteen of my favorite pieces of NES box art here.
The YouTube channel outsidexbox created a video called "7 Times Epic Box Art Overpromised Wildly," and here's the description that came along with it:
Box art usually gives you an idea of what to expect from the game. But sometimes the box art is so ridiculously epic that no game could ever live up to it. Consider our seven favourites.
In the days before you had Metacritic and YouTube on your phone, you had to consider things such as box art when you were out buying games. Most of the time it gave you a pretty good idea what to expect, but consider these videogames whose epic box arts wrote cheques their actual gameplay couldn't cash.
For example, the cover for Saboteur 2: Avenging Angel is a ninja on a superbike fighting panthers with a katana in the middle of an explosion. There is no way that is not going to be the greatest game of all time, right?
Except that it came out in 1987, when moving gradually from one side of the screen to the other was considered the height of pulse-pounding action gameplay. There are panthers though! Sad, slow, non-threatening panthers. You’d be better off propping the box art in front of your screen and just looking at that, to be honest.
The one game on the list that I don't really agree with was Mega Man. In that case, the game was actually better than the box. Watch the video and let us know what you think of the choices.