Video Game Box Art from Imagic

Based on the overwhelming success of October’s month-long theme of Halloween/Horror Video Game Bob Art, we will keep the themes on coming. For the month of November, we will look at the art for one publisher, for one system. This time, we will look at the covers from Imagic during the run of the Atari 2600. That’s enough exposition, let us get down to business. . . .and business is goofy.

Fathom

Alright, so what do we have here? We have. . . . . .THE EVILIST-LOOKING MERMAID EVER!

Is it not enough that mermaids use their temptress songs to lure sailors to their death, but do need to have the glowing red eye treatment? Thank goodness she is behind bars. Unless we are behind bars, and she is looking in on us like we are stuck in some sort of underwater zoo.

Dang, my evil merfolk captors! However, I do enjoy the placement of the neon sign bar. Classy.

Quick Step

As you can see, this cover continues the use of neon light style objects that we saw in Fathom. Even the animals are neon.

Wait a minute. Is this the game where they force animals to play on the game grid if they get digitized into the computer system, ala Tron? Is Sark monitoring the game grid smugly, pitting Byte the Squirrel against Meg the Rabbit?

Is it that easy to tell I am way too into Tron right now? That’s silly, no one can be “too” into Tron.

Moonsweeper

Imagic is famous for their use of real world photos on their covers (the best of all time will be the last on this list). With the cover of Moonsweeper, we have some poor guy having to sit in a space suit while someone takes photos of him reaching over some rocks. Now, the devil is in the little details of this image.

First, don’t you think they could have come up with better fake spacesuit gloves? They look like just a pair of latex surgical gloves. They are so terrible that if you look at the spaceman’s left arm (to our right), you can see a gap between the suit and the gloves, you can see his skin. That’s not a good protective seal!

Ok, well that different color might just be a shadow, but I like to think it is just a poor job by the designers of the shot. Look at the rocks our cosmonaut is climbing over, towards the left. Is that a ram’s head formation in the rocks? Heck, if the mountains in the background are laser blue, why are the rocks upfront realistic?

Solar Storm

Another “NEW!” game. When they were creating the prop helmet for the cover, didn’t anyone stop and say “You know what guys, I think we have glued enough random crap onto the top of this thing.”

Then the boss comes in, “No! More crap! I want this helmet to look like the surface of the Death Star during the trench run. Paint some old gumdrops white and staple them on! More, more, more!”

As if the helmet was not enough, the guy is wearing a pair of wide shoulder pads. Right below the right shoulder pad, it looks like they tacked on the back wing of a hot wheel car. Remember game cover art fans, sometimes enough is indeed enough.

Demon Attack

If you knew anything about Imagic covers, you knew this was coming up. Demon Attack is one of the crown jewels of the video game cover world. This cover is either the most super radical awesome cover of all time or one of the dumbest. This cover was made when someone, some mad genius took a few dinosaurs toys they had lying around, glue gunned some airplane wings and missiles on them, spray painted them a metallic silver and took photos of them flying through space.

Silver dinosaurs fighting with missiles in space. How could you not buy this game if you saw the cover in the store? What little kid would pass that up? It has space, dinosaurs, missiles, everything a young video game playing child would love. Yet this cover, taken at face value, is incredibly ridiculous. I will say it again, silver-painted dinosaurs with fighter jet wings in space!

I could say it a billion times, and it still doesn’t get old. So I will leave it up to you to decide the level of awesome this cover has.