Collection Cover Art

Cover art, I’ve been threatening to talk about this for a very long time now. I think it is something I need to get into. Let’s focus on the Collections that have been coming out for the PS3 recently. Now I like having the God of War Collection. I still want to get the Tomb Raider Trilogy and Sly Cooper Trilogy. But have you seen the cover art for these games? Let’s talk about some lazy design.

Here it is, this is the set that started it all. The God of War collection. There was a chance here to do something interesting. To have some fun with it. Instead we get the original covers of both games now sharing space on the same box. Who thought that this was a good idea? I want to know. This is ugly and lazy. These collections are awesome things. I like that they are coming out, but why can’t the studios try just a little harder?

Here is the sly Cooper Collection that I was talking about. Yes I want this set, but only for the same reason I got the God of War Collection. I don’t own any of these games. Now when I pick it up I’m going to have this absolutely hideous cover art to deal with.

Tomb Raider Trilogy? Same deal. It’s just the covers from the original games. This time they decided crop the original covers and slap on a lot of blank space.  It is a completely unattractive cover.

Now I do understand the logic behind them. What you see when you look at it is three distinct images. Already you begin to wonder, “How many games are in this set?” Then you can see the trilogy words and you begin to understand. Personally I wish that studios would take a little more pride and have more fun with this sort of thing. Why do the covers have to be boring?

I fully intend to replace these covers when I purchase the games. I want to find something that’s nicer to look at. Here’s an example from The Cover Project:

Now, ignoring the bizarre Blu-Ray logo on the front, I find this to be a far better cover. It tells me all I need to know. This game stars Kratos. It has the word Collection. The back tells me that there are mutlitple games in it. Now I need to change out the top border, but this is a pretty sexy cover. This is the sort of thing I will replace my game covers with.

Now there is one more cover that I want to talk about. This one is just completely unexcusable.

This is completely uncalled for from Ubisoft. Why they have hit such a level of lazyness with their games I do not know. I do not claim to understand the method to their madness. Now you may say, “It’s no different from the other games pictured here.” I will tell you that you are wrong. This cover is Ubisoft at it’s most lazy. And here is my proof.

Look at them. Look at the Prince on them. The pose is nearly identical. It wasn’t until I had the two next to each other that I learned there was a difference. It is almost like Ubisoflt slightly altered the background from Forgotten Sands, grayed out the Prince, and slapped three cover art pictures in front of it all. The Sands of Time is one of  my favorite games of all times, it deserved better then this. Better by a longshot.

Custom Cover

I bought Castlevania I bought it used. That’s right, I’m not afraid to admit to buying a used game. Gamestop was having a buy two get one free weekend and I was in a position to take advantage of it. I got Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Hey look! They all have subtitles! While the first two were in excellent condition, Castlevania was missing it's case. So I ended up with this floppy feeling black case with a Gamestop advertisement for a cover. Not very attractive looking.

Something similar to this.
But for the PS3 and uglier

This needed to be fixed. I can’t stand ugly covers and I hate my collection not being uniform (to a point at least). Sure I would like to get a hold of some clear PlayStatiion 3 game cases, but that’s harder to pull off. What I can do is print a new game cover. First, I find most cover art to be pretty boring. They typically show a picture of the hero and slap the name on it. Castlevania’s cover isn’t much better.

No, that cover will never do. I needed a new cover. One that will really pop. I found this great place called the Cover Project. There are some custom covers there, but not what I was looking for. They actually don’t even have Castlevania: Lords of Shadow at all, but I really do like the place. So I continued looking. I eventually found one that I liked but it was designed for Europe.

Big file ahead!

Now that was a great start, but I really wanted to cover to look professional. I want people look at it and not immediately realize that it’s a custom cover. So I went looking for all the assets I needed to make it look American. After some additions I decided I finally had what I was looking for, a custom cover for my Castlevania game. Here it is:

This is the cover that I use for my game

Pretty nice huh? I’m happy with it. I like that it's a bit of a throwback to the older Castlevania games.

Gotta love the 80s!

There’s a custom God of War Collection cover up on Cover Projects that I’m thinking about using on my copy of the game. The Collections really have ugly boxart, but I want to cover that a little more in detail later.

To Dream A Dream

I have a dream! But then again, who doesn’t? But my dream is not a simple dream. I want to start my own video game company. I’ve wanted to do this for many, many years now. I just lack the knowledge of how to go about it. But I feel that my time is coming. In the meantime I will discuss a fan concept that I have.

Now I do enjoy the Dynasty Warriors series. Yes I can agree with most people that it can really use some shaking up to the current formula. But that’s not the point. I enjoy the massive cast of characters and the unique personalities that they bring. So I’ve decided that I want to do a cross-over series with characters from various action games.

The game would include characters like Kratos, Dante, Bayonetta, and many others from the action game category or characters with enough animations to make a valid moveset off of. For me, this game would be awesome. Giant, sweeping, epic battles were the characters take down thousands of enemy troops. Except for Batman, he wouldn’t kill them, just knock them all unconscious.

Still it would be a uber-geek fight fest. No it wouldn’t answer the question between who would win between Kratos and Dante. That would depend upon player skill. But it would be exciting to see these characters fighting side-by-side. Or against each other, that could be fun too. Maybe create some epic rivalries out of it.

There is a lot of potential for a game like this. I really wish I had the skills to put it together. But since it would be a PS3 game then it would require a fairly decent team to rip the models (if that’s even possible), build a working engine, combat system, build levels, set up lighting and many, many other tasks.

Still, I can dream. And I will continue to dream and maybe one day my dream could come true. That would sure be nice.