The worst box art of 2015
7. Green Ranch
Are... are those... velvet blue jeans? Look at how soft and smooth they are, that's definitely not denim. Velvet is also a much easier fabric to bedazzle, and it's clear our humble farmer has a passion of fake diamond studs. Maybe that's just some exaggerated stitching, but I like my version better.
6. My Paper Boat
Forget My Horse and Me 2 or My Baby: First Steps - which are, somehow, actual video games - this is where the real action is at: My Paper Boat. You know exactly what you're getting: a paper boat, and you know exactly what you need to do: DOWNLOAD. The two company logos in the top corners suggests more than zero people worked on this game, which I find hard to believe.
5. Brownies
Nothing about this damn box makes any damn sense. Weve got an elephant running around up top, lightning zipping all over the place, and some mysterious, multi-colored cones. Then there's the name: Brownies. Not 'Strategy Wizard Commander' or 'Brownies: Magical Baking Adventure' or something - anything - just 'Brownies'. The one thing that's for certain here is that Mr. Brownies has the thousand-yard stare of a man who has seen too much.
4. Save Halloween: City of Witches
This is someone's ideal woman. Just... just think about that for a second. Huge chest, thick legs, and spindly arms that taper off into the tiniest wrists imaginable, the bones in which would clearly shatter under the weight of those garish hands. This witch also thought to pack her cash register onto her broomstick so she could... nope, there's no possible explanation for that detail that would make any semblance of sense.
3. Where are My Pipes?
That woman needs to worry less about the pipes and figure out where her legs have gone. Maybe she can ask the smug beaver to stop acting like a jackass and help her look. Is that beaver supposed to be leaning on something, or is it waiting for a high five that's never going to happen?
2. Who Am I?
Hideous. Simply hideous. The generic-as-hell background gets a C- passing grade, but the three goonish characters here are all murder on the eyes, particular the 'surgically altered Cro-Magnon' look the woman seems to be going for. I can't really blame her for the stunned look in her horribly rendered eyes, though: there seems to be the barrel of a modified handgun poking into the right side of the frame, pointed directly at her while Stumpy the Cop and Briefcase Dog stand idly by. None of this even begins to answer the question of who I am. As for the logo itself, it appears to be suspended by chains and illuminated by three affixed lamps - but at a glance, it just looks like a milk-colored Lego block with nipple-shaped black pegs atop it.
1. Kicking Bones
Ohhhhhhh boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. There's such a blatant disregard for readability or cohesion here that the Kicking Bones cover becomes a work of abstract art. To comprehend such a disjointed masterpiece, let us examine each piece of this unintelligible puzzle. There's the unsightly, 3D rendered imp, whose skin texture somehow looks grubby and shiny at the same time, and seems to have some manner of golf club, hockey stick, or ornate cane lodged in his calf and/or rectum. There are the three copy-and-pasted skulls placed so close together that the artist's laziness is almost palpable, with two of them given blur effects like they're inexplicably flying through the air. Now turn your attention to the nondescript stuffed animal just begging to be hugged, clearly placed in such a way as to cover the disturbingly human-looking silhouette that remains in the background art. With no rhyme or reason whatsoever, you've got a pair of skeleton's legs sprouting up in the middle of this chaotic mish-mash of unrelated objects. And none of it - none of it - conveys anything about what this game is about, or how it might play. Bravo, Virtual Mobile Games GBR. Bravo indeed.
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Lucas Sullivan is the former US Managing Editor of 12DOVE. Lucas spent seven years working for GR, starting as an Associate Editor in 2012 before climbing the ranks. He left us in 2019 to pursue a career path on the other side of the fence, joining 2K Games as a Global Content Manager. Lucas doesn't get to write about games like Borderlands and Mafia anymore, but he does get to help make and market them.