Classic PC game boxes/box artwork (image-heavy; dialups beware)

[Blackjack]

I was going to throw out some folded up old PC boxes today. I had a bunch just folded up and taking space. But then I realized most were from the era when PC boxes got bigger and bigger, with huge artwork, unfolding panels, crazy amounts of detail, and sometimes origami like shapes. And lots are classic games that veteran PC gamers always refer to and that probably still inspire the industry today (so it's almost like a fun history lesson to view these now).

So I took some photos. Heck, maybe I'll do a little Web page some day.

I esp. miss the boxes with the large flip-out panels. Here are just a few memorable ones, for fun.

A couple of my faves were for Tribes and Freespace:

[Blackjack]

A few with links to the present might be Myth: The Fallen Lords (Bungie? PC developer? Outrageous!  ), System Shock 2 (Irrational's learning grounds for Bioshock), and Shattered Steel (1996 mech game by the then fledgling Bioware).

Oh, and while viewing the back of the Shattered Steel box, I realized Mass Effect in the end isn't any different in plot than what Bioware was doing 11 years ago. See below:

[CeeKay]

who could forget:

?

[Gromit]

For the flight sim aficionado's among us:   



I sometimes wish I had a rig that could still run these...it's a shame that they sit in storage.

[Destructor]

*Note to self - edit this post later tonight after digging out my Wing Commander 1 Box along with all the stuff inside*

That said - so many classic works of art on the boxes of old.

[warning]

I really like my original Half-Life box, Deus Ex box and Thief 1 & 2 boxes.

[Blackjack]

The Ultima one's cool -- Origin always did the nicest "supplementary" stuff in their boxes, and it really helped immerse you in the game world even when you weren't playing. You could tell they were going nuts with desktop publishing software. Here's the "fold out" that came with Crusader: No Remorse in 1996. Oh that an isometric game could be "Action Game of the Year" in today's FPS-drowned world. 

[EngineNo9]

Well, Mobygames does have a pretty extensive collection of pictures of old box art and packaging (as well as full credits, etc).  You can even submit additional photos of your own. 

[unbreakable]

who could forget:

?

"Ultima Online 2... coming soon"

[Destructor]

"Ultima Online 2... coming soon"

I still have a screenshot of that tucked away in a folder somewhere...

[JCC]

Not to mention Ultima X which may have been canceled a month or so before its planned release date.

[Daehawk]

*Note to self - edit this post later tonight after digging out my Wing Commander 1 Box along with all the stuff inside*

That said - so many classic works of art on the boxes of old.

Aw I was gonna post that

Lemme see if I can make my camera card work.....

[Calvin]

Gosh I wish I had kept more boxes

[Destructor]

Prodigy! Holy crap!

[unbreakable]

Not to mention Ultima X which may have been canceled a month or so before its planned release date.

I'll have to poke around, I saw some company catalogue a few months back which had stuff about Ultima X.  I can't remember which game box it was in.  But it was good for a laugh.

[Laner]

Some old C64 games...

[Blackjack]

Yeah we could probably start a whole thread on what game manuals used to be and what they are today. I think the first time I got a Windows 95 game with a flimsy little jewel box manual that told me to "open the PDF on the CD for full documentation," I knew the days of big, useful, sometimes spiral bound manuals were going to become extinct - I can understand it from a production cost standpoint, and a "tree-saving" standpoint, but I do miss some things like the big spiral bound manuals in Dynamix's Aces series, and the like.

Or the manuals that were written with a lot of imagination, like a character in the game world telling your character how to play, and what to be careful of (Crusader: No Remorse's manual was like that, but it was written from the standpoint of talking to you in your role as a "Cartel lackey" before you side with the Rebels ).

[Gratch]

I really should have taken some pictures before I tossed 2 huge crates full of old game boxes last weekend.    My personal favorite was the old triangle shaped big-box for the original Thief.

[unbreakable]

Some old C64 games...

OMG, I had, and loved, all those games.  I still play Neuromancer every once in a while.

[Knightshade Dragon]

I need to clean my office and take pictures.  It'd horrify me to add up the amount of money spent, but I should do it anyway.

[Lockdown]

I need to clean my office and take pictures.  It'd horrify me to add up the amount of money spent, but I should do it anyway.

Same here, Ron.  I think I would have a stroke if I did that.

[Blackjack]

Since there is much grumbling that "Hellgate is no Diablo II," lets go back even further to the source material so we can say "Hellgate is not even a Diablo!" 

Money - don't even get me started. If I added up the money spent on PCs, upgrades, games (not to mention consoles and handhelds and their various games), then basically you would have enough money to buy an island somewhere. 

[Daehawk]

Heres an oldie. A IBM / Atari game from the 80's.

[CeeKay]

I didn't hold onto my old boxes due to moving so much after high school.  it's too bad- I had an almost complete collection of Ultima boxes....

[Blackjack]

I'm afraid I couldn't even afford a PC 'til I bought a Vtech-made Laser brand PC in late 1992. Among my handful of 1992 era games I've held onto is Alone in the Dark:


But when I opened the box, I started laughing -- remember how creative (sometimes goofy) they'd get with copy protection schemes? Alone in the Dark provided this teeny, weeny book...


And then you'd open it up to the appropriate page numbers. I think you'd have to enter the items (they are items that really appear in the game) at the copy protection screen to complete installation. 

[Blackjack]

Alone in the Dark's spartan packaging reminds me that sometimes the best games come in unassuming packaging. You can't really even tell from the outside what magic lies inside.

In fact, it might be the kind of magic the developer finds they can't ever recapture, even when it seems like they spent the rest of their career trying to. And not even all the dev houses in eastern Europe and Russia trying their darndest to copycat it can ever quite capture that lightning in a bottle again. What is it? What's one of those games that haunts the industry even 13 years after its release? *drum roll please*... It's...





If only reading the back of the box was all today's devs needed to do to copy it successfully. There's more to it than that. 

[JCC]

Here's one of my old faves I kept:

[CeeKay]

you're missing the coin!

[JCC]

Yeah I noticed it was missing too. I think it must have fallen into my pc games junk box. I haven't felt like looking for it yet. (The ankh in Ultima IV was much cooler anyway. I remember actually feeling let down by the coin when I first opened the Ultima V box!)

[CeeKay]

Yeah I noticed it was missing too. I think it must have fallen into my pc games junk box. I haven't felt like looking for it yet. (The ankh in Ultima IV was much cooler anyway. I remember actually feeling let down by the coin when I first opened the Ultima V box!)

at least it was nicer than the black 'stone' that came with 6.

[Blackjack]

Clearly the hunger for "pyramid" boxes (I'd tend to call them "trapezoidal", but that's splitting geometric hairs ) Must Be Fed!!!!

When you flipped the panel vertically, you got some pretty incredible stuff, like so...

Tomb Raider


Thief II: The Metal Age

[CeeKay]

heh, Eidos, the company that was probably the straw that broke the camels back when it came to game boxes 

[EngineNo9]

heh, Eidos, the company that was probably the straw that broke the camels back when it came to game boxes 

That's nothing compared to the madness that was the fornicating triangles of the Gabriel Knight box:

bah, dang links

[Blackjack]

Reminds me a bit of Broderbund's box for the original Prince of Persia (I actually bought PoP2 first, and then backtracked to pick this up later, about 1993):

I just hated the little 2nd box end piece, because it always popped off and let the floppies and docs fall out if you moved the box. 

btw I apologize to any dial-ups trying to view this thread; guess I shoulda put a warning on it. 

[kronovan]

I'd take a picture of my Falcon 4.0 operations manual and post it, but I don't want to throw my back out trying to lift it off of my book shelf.