Have you played Atari today? 11 year old me was able to always answer that question yes.
So many times the box art would totally capture my imagination. I'd ask for some cartridge for Christmas or my birthday and it was always a bit of a gut punch to see the screen for the first time.
The box art for Haunted House (not the racy, original version) always frightened me as a child. I got the same feeling when I would go through my dad's vinyl collection and would run into the cover of The Moody Blues' "On The Threshold Of A Dream." The surreal style captured the types of nightmares I would have when young.
I own the poster version ("The Art of Atari, the poster collection") and it's great. I have three of their posters hanging in my office right now. It's not just nostalgia, the art is terrific.
EDIT: the poster collection now costs $600+ on Amazon. Wow.
Aargh. I've been wanting a large poster of Missile Command for a while now, but can't seem to find one at a decent price. Having one printed is difficult too as I can't find high-res, large image files of it.
The spaceship beaming people up in Defender always looked like it's proportions were off. As a kid, I remember seeing the spaceship and thinking it looked like a metal glove.
The Art of Over-Promising and Under-Delivering, ha ha. (Truly, I did just want something closer to a gently stylized screenshot so I knew what I was getting.)
Contrasting this with the similarly fantastic and ridiculous GPU Box Art from the 90's kind of shows how in 15-20 years at least back then, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
I loved art like this. It encouraged you to use your imagination to see the little blob of pixels on your screen as a warrior, spaceship, etc. It made the simple graphics more meaningful.
It's kinda like how in Clue (Cluedo), the characters like Reverend Green, Miss Scarlett, Professor Plum, etc. so richly detailed in the box art and on the cards are represented by simple one-color game pieces in-game.
Have you played Atari today? 11 year old me was able to always answer that question yes.
So many times the box art would totally capture my imagination. I'd ask for some cartridge for Christmas or my birthday and it was always a bit of a gut punch to see the screen for the first time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/11ddevl/atari_...
I would love to see someone do video synthesis using the cover art as a basis. I wish I were more adept at it to try it out.
The box art for Haunted House (not the racy, original version) always frightened me as a child. I got the same feeling when I would go through my dad's vinyl collection and would run into the cover of The Moody Blues' "On The Threshold Of A Dream." The surreal style captured the types of nightmares I would have when young.
Atari Haunted House: https://e.snmc.io/lk/o/x/5585d64c8bad9592834b18b0c8394b44/10...
On The Threshold Of A Dream: https://rockandrollglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2505...
I always enjoyed the Magnavox Odyssey 2 box art as well
https://retrovania-vgjunk.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-wonderful...
I own the poster version ("The Art of Atari, the poster collection") and it's great. I have three of their posters hanging in my office right now. It's not just nostalgia, the art is terrific.
EDIT: the poster collection now costs $600+ on Amazon. Wow.
Aargh. I've been wanting a large poster of Missile Command for a while now, but can't seem to find one at a decent price. Having one printed is difficult too as I can't find high-res, large image files of it.
The spaceship beaming people up in Defender always looked like it's proportions were off. As a kid, I remember seeing the spaceship and thinking it looked like a metal glove.
I have this book. It’s fantastic.
There is also one from Bitmap Books but more about the actual game graphics.
https://www.bitmapbooks.com/en-ca/collections/all-books/prod...
Thank you for posting this. I had no idea this was out there!
These were really quite a piece of art. Unfortunately nowadays a box is so rare.
The Art of Over-Promising and Under-Delivering, ha ha. (Truly, I did just want something closer to a gently stylized screenshot so I knew what I was getting.)
Contrasting this with the similarly fantastic and ridiculous GPU Box Art from the 90's kind of shows how in 15-20 years at least back then, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/relive-the-d...
I loved art like this. It encouraged you to use your imagination to see the little blob of pixels on your screen as a warrior, spaceship, etc. It made the simple graphics more meaningful.
It's kinda like how in Clue (Cluedo), the characters like Reverend Green, Miss Scarlett, Professor Plum, etc. so richly detailed in the box art and on the cards are represented by simple one-color game pieces in-game.