VGC Top Ten: Worst Photoshop Disasters in Game Cover Art
by Stephen Kelley, posted on 07 January 2010 / 132,771 Views
Let me begin this VGC Top Ten with a statement: I will not deny that I am not good at using the popular photo editing suite Photoshop, but I know crap covers when I see them. Sometimes the cover art for a game seems to be a total afterthought, and looks as if it gets rushed to save money. As you will see many of these covers suffer from being “shovelware” so it is no surprise that the quality might be sub-par. But others look completely mental, sort of like if scientists trained a gorilla to not only speak in sign language, but to create bad Photoshop images as well. As with any of these, this top ten is in no particular order.
FIFA 08 (Multi)
Maybe someone can fill me in on what horrendous accident Ronaldinho (center) was involved in before he took this picture. I mean look at the dude's arm! It looks to be broken in two places and smaller than it should be. Also I amazed that someone with the lack of an elbow can actually bend his gnarly wretched limb.
NCAA March Madness 2003 (Multi)
This is just a case of needing to fit the art on a small space, and having to make cuts. Shame that Drew Gooden has one arm that is long and slender, and another tiny little T-Rex arm, that he uses to throw the ball. Because of the tiny arm the image looks as if his head is too big despite probably being in good proportion to the other arm. Shame the stubby arm has the ball as your eyes are drawn to it.
PES 2010 (Multi)
I know that this cover was a dynamic shot that may have just been slightly too big to fit on any videogame cover. So rather than shrink the people down we end up with two guys managing to play soccer despite the crippling devastation that is polio. I know many will point out that Lionel Messi (blue and red guy) is something like 5’6” and a bit stocky, but nobody has thighs the same size as their shins. In order to clear the logo, the guy or gal that made the picture has also stretched out his torso, making him look all kinds of messed up. I mean most people’s elbows come to their waistline; Messi’s waistline is like one foot below his arms. To make matters worse, Fernando Torres (red guy) looks to have the same size legs despite being taller
Ultimate Duck Hunting (Wii)
When I first heard about Ultimate duck hunting for the Wii I actually thought that maybe a new game in the classic Duck Hunt series was being made. The cover has all of the trappings of the classic: a hunter holding a gun, a duck flying through the air, and a sadistic demon of a hunting dog. This is no normal dog, but a dog that surely watches over our protagonist waiting for the slightest failure as he feeds on the failure. The failure nourishes his lifeforce and makes him laugh the laugh of a million men. The point of this game is obviously to try to hunt enough ducks to ultimately confront the enormous demon of a black Labrador to see who gets the last laugh. By the way dude, the duck is right behind you.
Imagine Party Babyz (Wii)
This cover reminds me of these sad old ladies that Photoshop make-up, white teeth, and glitter onto pictures of pre-pubescent beauty pageant contestants in order to dress up web pages and make themselves feel good about their own spoiled youth. Not only are these babies – er- Babyz creepy looking, but they are 100 billion percent unnatural looking. Good thing that the party is in honor of their long deceased friend who happens to be astral projecting herself as a ghost to watch the festivities in the back. I guess it all boils down to the complete ludicrous nature of this game. Who is this for? Babyz? Little girlz? Ghozt babyz? Nobody knows.
Okami (Wii)
Let’s say you are in a bind: you need to finish a Photoshop cover for a new Wii game coming out, but can’t find the master copy of the art. After a quick Google search, your problem seems to be solved, that is until a week later when the crapstorm hits.
It looks like the image found above, was a coverart from the IGN database….OOPS!
Imagine Babies (DS)
Same as above except rather than paying seven dollars for the stock image, lets just lift the thumbnail preview, complete with iStockphoto watermark!
Take a closer look:
Oops again!
Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
I can see the logic that went into this cover, but the execution is so hilarious that it makes me cry. I don’t know if it is the doubled up “Nintendo DS” “Konami” and “T for Teen” logos that make me laugh the most, or the fact that someone seriously made a picture of a game box into a game box in itself. That’s kind of like paying money to meet a guy that has a picture of Metallica in his pocket.
Ballet Studio (Wii)
First of all, I’m not really going to comment on how utterly uninspired and boring the layout of this cover is, but this one stands out for one reason: the hideous deformed poor little girl on the right. In my mind I have concocted an elaborate backstory for this girl. My story tells of a child born with one arm and a giant head trying to get by in a harsh world where many would laugh at her. Since she only had one arm, she had to make ends meet any way she could. What followed was a journey that led to a life of arm wrestling truckers in an old truck stop, but her true dream was ballet dancing. A dream that has finally come true! Either that or someone used body parts from like three people using Photoshop to create the most unnatural looking and somewhat uncomfortable girl in existence.
Paws and Claws Pet Vet (Wii)
This is without a doubt, the worst Photoshopped picture on a game cover that I’ve ever seen. First of all the scale is all off in this monstrosity. We have a huge rabbit, a tiny horse that is somehow as tall as a golden retriever, a disproportionally large bird and a tiny little shih’tzu, smaller than a cat. If that’s not bad enough, if you were like me, your eyes were immediately drawn to the pet vet girl’s magical arm. Many theories circulate to the origin of this arm, but three are the most likely: the arm is either severed off and being eaten by the cat, the arm is protruding from the girl’s left knee, or the arm is some kind of ghost arm, which only shows up in photographs.
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