Ten Artistically Significant Atari 2600 Covers

[monkspider]

This was a article i wrote that i thought the retro game lovers at Digital Press would appreciate.
http://www.examiner.com/x-5349-Wichita-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m4d2-Ten-Artistically-Significant-Atari-2600-Covers

What are your favorite 2600 covers? I like them since they tend to have just the right mix of beauty and insanity.:cheers:

-Edit the followup "Ten Completely Freaking Insane Atari 2600 Covers" is now online too!
http://www.examiner.com/x-5349-Wichita-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m4d3-Ten-completely-freaking-insane-Atari-2600-covers

[Zap!]

I'm flashy and anti-plain, so I like this one:

http://www.vedrashko.com/uploaded_images/communist_mutants-740168.jpg

[Rob2600]

This was a article i wrote that i thought the retro game lovers at Digital Press would appreciate.
http://www.examiner.com/x-5349-Wichita-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m4d2-Ten-Artistically-Significant-Atari-2600-Covers

No Haunted House??? That's one of the best covers of all time:

MobyGames - Haunted House (Atari 2600) cover (http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-2600/haunted-house/cover-art/gameCoverId,22747/)


The Defender cover art is great, too:

MobyGames - Defender (Atari 2600) cover (http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-2600/defender/cover-art/gameCoverId,20733/)

[c0ldb33r]

My God I love 2600 covers, but that's not the normal Donkey Kong box is it?

[Graham Mitchell]

wow, that donkey kong art is just insane. didnt they look at the cabinet before designing that? doing so would have likely changed the way that turned out drastically. dk looks like a primitive big daddy with his drill arm. as for mario being a clown...maybe they got dk confused with mr. do?

[monkspider]

Sorry for leaving off Defender, and especially Haunted House. They were both on a short list of possible covers I was considering.

[Sosage]

No Haunted House??? That's one of the best covers of all time:

MobyGames - Haunted House (Atari 2600) cover (http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-2600/haunted-house/cover-art/gameCoverId,22747/)

QFT. If I could pick up a poster sized print of it, I'd frame it and hang it on one of my walls. Almost all of that era's 2600 label paintings are bad ass (although the memory and breakout labels the author chose are cool also).

[Nebagram]

wow, that donkey kong art is just insane. didnt they look at the cabinet before designing that? doing so would have likely changed the way that turned out drastically. dk looks like a primitive big daddy with his drill arm. as for mario being a clown...maybe they got dk confused with mr. do?

http://www.411mania.com/games/columns/95512 Apparently it's, of all things, the Mexican cover to the game.

[Atarileaf]

I always thought Video Pinball perfectly embodied the trippy 70's feel that Atari had going for it:

[Zap!]

wow, that donkey kong art is just insane. didnt they look at the cabinet before designing that? doing so would have likely changed the way that turned out drastically. dk looks like a primitive big daddy with his drill arm. as for mario being a clown...maybe they got dk confused with mr. do?

It appears to be a horn in his head (or head drill horn), not a drill arm. The blue guy has the same thing, and it's clearly a horn on him.

http://image.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/b_DonkeyKong_Unknown_front(1).jpg

[Steve W]

Yar's Revenge has great box art. I'd love to have it poster sized! Phoenix is pretty great, too. I prefer the original Demon Attack box art with the plastic dinosaurs far more than the later revision with the professional artwork. Escape From The Mindmaster, with the giant evil green face and a maze shaped head is pretty dang cool. Combat's artwork was really impressive at the time, along with the Raiders of the Lost Ark cover.

[Graham Mitchell]

It appears to be a horn in his head (or head drill horn), not a drill arm. The blue guy has the same thing, and it's clearly a horn on him.

http://image.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/b_DonkeyKong_Unknown_front(1).jpg

Well, it's tough to see on a cell phone.

[Pantechnicon]

Any conversation about artistic 2600 covers has to include the Mythicon (http://www.atariage.com/company_page.html?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=37) titles. Horrible games, amazing artwork.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, it's tough to see on a cell phone.
Especially Gordon Gekko's!

@ OP: You took a nice stab at the topic. I agree with about half of the choices. Part of the problem with the VCS is so many of the 20th Cent. covers are freakin' amazing but they start to seem "samey" after you've seen twenty billion of 'em.

The Haunted House one kinda reminds me of Sweet Home (FC/Capcom).

[slapdash]

The picture on the Donkey Kong box is basically depicting Mr Do's Castle (one of the Mr Do games anyway).

[BydoEmpire]

Nice article - I'd never seen that DK box before. I liked that it wasn't "ten best" or "ten craziest" or "ten worst." Just "here's ten that I think are important for one reason or another.

[boatofcar]

The picture on the Donkey Kong box is basically depicting Mr Do's Castle (one of the Mr Do games anyway).

Yeah, it's from Mr. Do's Castle--the only Mr. Do game where he has a hammer and fights unicorns. Crazy how it ended up on a Donkey Kong box.

My favorite 2600 boxes are the rainbow Activision ones. Anybody have a full set of these? I'm still missing a few.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/99/304355802_fb7e02188d_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnshawler/304355802/)

[Zap!]

The picture on the Donkey Kong box is basically depicting Mr Do's Castle (one of the Mr Do games anyway).

No doubt, it's 100% Mr. Do's Castle.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Docastle.png

[Haoie]

Ha, too bad the cover never matched the real game.

Same way today, really.

[shawnbo42]

I never really paid that much attention to my 2600 box art, and then I read the article. Gave me a new perspective on it, I'll have to look more closely now, thanks for posting that.

[RCM]

It's a nice list, but I don't get the title. Why are they artistically significant? The title sets up expectations that really don't seem to be addressed in-depth or at all.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

The picture on the Donkey Kong box is basically depicting Mr Do's Castle (one of the Mr Do games anyway).
Par for the course for pirate companies.

Farmer Dan (pirate version of Gopher) by Zellers has the artwork lifted from Plaque Attack.
http://www.atariage.com/box_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=693

[HYB]

It's a nice list, but I don't get the title. Why are they artistically significant? The title sets up expectations that really don't seem to be addressed in-depth or at all.

I was thinking the same. You can shoot dadaism and Escher at me all you want but it doesn't help me see the artistic significancy. I liked how you pointed out the minimalistic nature of the Pitfall 2 cover though, although it's far to detailed to be really minimalistic. Maybe enough to be considered minimalistic as a VG cover though, maybe.

[c0ldb33r]

Farmer Dan (pirate version of Gopher) by Zellers has the artwork lifted from Plaque Attack.
Zellers? The Canadian chain store? I didn't know they made games.

Weird.

[Chaz From Phantasy Star 2]

The picture on the Donkey Kong box is basically depicting Mr Do's Castle (one of the Mr Do games anyway).

Ummm.... why? Why not portray.... oh, I don't know..... Donkey Kong, Mario, and Pauline?


It beats the bare minimalism of Pitfall II, though...

[PingvinBlueJeans]

Zellers? The Canadian chain store? I didn't know they made games.

Weird.
Well, they didn't exactly "make" any per se, but they did sell their own line of (pirated) game cartridges. The games themselves were made by a pirate company in Taiwan and similar '2600 Compatible' games were also sold in other countries (without the Zellers name on the boxes).

[monkspider]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. "Artistically significant" was meant in the context of video game cover art as opposed to all art in general. I didn't mean to imply that these video game covers made far-reaching advances in the field of art, just that they were significant as early examples of high quality game art.

And the followup article, "Ten Completely Freaking Insane Atari 2600 Covers' is also now online. It attempts to look at some of the more bizarre examples of Atari 2600 covers. I hope you enjoy it as well.

http://www.examiner.com/x-5349-Wichita-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m4d3-Ten-completely-freaking-insane-Atari-2600-covers

[Nes]

Mr. Do's Castle Video Game Ad

http://www.tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/game%20ads/mr_do%27s_castle.htm

[k8track]

Kudos to the Farmer Dan box for slapping on a picture of Plaque Attack, when it's actually a bootleg of Gopher. Nice!

[boatofcar]

I was thinking the same. You can shoot dadaism and Escher at me all you want but it doesn't help me see the artistic significancy. I liked how you pointed out the minimalistic nature of the Pitfall 2 cover though, although it's far to detailed to be really minimalistic. Maybe enough to be considered minimalistic as a VG cover though, maybe.

It's just opinions. It's no less scientific than asking people what the most significant 2600 games are.

[kainemaxwell]

I always loved the box art for Activision's titles the most, part of why I took up the quest for an Activision Atari 2600 collection. Demon Attack's cover was always cool too.

Check out this Pac-Man art:
http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/images/features/pacman-atari.gif