No.323
>>318Mega's ankle is broken but otherwise it's definitely a step up from the cover of the first game.
Anyway have Arnie/Arnie 2 for the Commodore 64.
No.325
>>324Is that real?
Pretty funny, yet neat, if so.
No.326
>>325Real enough to be on MobyGames, at least.
No.330
>>328I like the Frank Frazetta-like look of these ones.
No.331
>>330Ken Kelly studied under Frazetta so it makes sense.
Too bad the games didn't quite live up to the badassery the covers suggested. A lot of potential with not enough QA/polish.
No.344
I suppose it was often done at least partly as a cost-saving measure in printing, but there's something uniquely cool about those black & white ink style illustrations. I have a bunch of neat ones but they're mostly from tabletop RPG books and gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy and such so not quite on topic for this thread I guess.
No.345
>>344I agree completely. I don't have much experience with tabletop games, but I've always pictured them as having artwork in this kind of vein. WarCraft was a Warhammer knockoff in the first place, so I guess it shouldn't be too surprising. I might have to look into Fighting Fantasy if its artwork is similar to these.
Here's the full manual if anyone's interested:
https://archive.org/details/Warcraft_I_-_Manual_-_PC/mode/2upOne of the things I've always thought was neat was how they have a separate manual section for both humans and orcs. You not only get background information on the story from their perspective and a description of their own units and buildings, but both parts feature a section describing the same hostile brigands and creatures.
I played WarCraft II first and still like it, but I find the aesthetics of the first game so much cooler. Some of the manual artwork in WarCraft looks good, I guess, but on the whole I find it way less charming. A lot of it has more complex shading and lacks the starkness I like from the original's manual. The fruity pseudo-steampunk stuff they started adding in WarCraft II doesn't help anything either in my opinion.
I've always loved thumbing through the manual since I was a kid and still have a copy to this day.
No.376
>>374The Contra one is great. I know Europe had weird censorship that resulted in the "Probotector" branding, but why does the alien seem to be robotic in that illustration? The text describes mutants and stuff so it's not trying to claim "the enemies are all robots so it's ok to shoot them" or any crap like that.
Also the level titles are fantastic. I wonder if they had area names in the Japanese version too and if they were as colorful?
No.377
>>376>I know Europe had weird censorship that resulted in the "Probotector" branding, but why does the alien seem to be robotic in that illustration? The text describes mutants and stuff so it's not trying to claim "the enemies are all robots so it's ok to shoot them" or any crap like that.I never made that connection. I don't think they censored aliens being killed, but if they did I suppose they could have carried over art like that into multiple regions.
>Also the level titles are fantastic. I wonder if they had area names in the Japanese version too and if they were as colorful?I wonder if they even call them that in-game. I've actually never played that Operation C and haven't spent much time with Super C either. My uncle did have the Game Boy version of Contra III when I was a kid though. I actually played that before I ever played any of the other Contra games.
Rygar is an interesting game. I watched my brother play through it, and there were some crazy glitches. I don't remember trying the arcade version (which I know is different), but I played the NES version for a bit when I first got a flash cart but never got all that far into it. I know the music was done by the guy who also did the music for Clash at Demonhead, and one of the tracks was even used for the title music in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
No.378
>>377NES Rygar is one of those cases where a console "port" was pretty much its own distinct game with similar theming/mechanics. It had a bunch of Zelda 2 type adventure/RPG stuff going on whereas the arcade version and all the direct ports thereof were pretty basic run-to-the-right slayfests.
There were definitely some exploitable bugs in the NES version, like despawning certain monsters or glitching through a wall into a whole different area as a shortcut. Not so much a bug but there was also an exploit where you could go to an area earlier than you were supposed to and farm an enemy that was worth lots of XP (or whatever weird term was used in place of XP) but was pretty easy to kill without taking damage if you knew how to dodge his beam.
Vixen vaguely related, as it seemed to me to be, maybe not quite a clone but probably at least inspired by arcade Rygar.
No.380
>>378>glitching through a wall into a whole different area as a shortcutSomething along those lines was what I remember seeing. I think my brother accidentally fell through the bottom of the screen and ended up in another location. Later he showed me a trick that he ended up learning where he did something similar. I think those kind of glitches add charm to the game.
I wonder how many people called the Vixen hotline expecting something dirty.
No.394
I don't know where it came from though. It's not quite the same, so I guess it might not even be official for all I know.
No.401
>>400first thought was "oh so he drives fast because he's racing against diarrhoea"
No.403
This is an early image of Age of Empires II. The art looks so different from the finished product that it must be an alpha version.
>>401That would make sense.
No.411
>>410I dare to say that he had fun, at least until the Prussians arrived.
No.412
>>410He had to make the best of it. He couldn't have escaped if he wanted to.
Speaking of Impressions Games and art, I thought I'd mention that the Civil War Generals II cover and the full-screen art images you see are taken from Mort Kuenstler's work. He not only did a bunch of historical paintings but also used to do pulp artwork. I've never played the first game and don't remember what the art looked like. I can't comment on whether or not he had any connection with that. I'm not that knowledgeable on the topic of Civil War art, but he's apparently really famous in that niche. I looked through some of his work and even recognized a painting that my grandparents had.
No.422
>>421Are ads like this okay? I should asked earlier. It's not really promotional material for any single game.
No.438
>>437Looks like it's still having trouble.
No.440
>>318Megaman have a massive collection of ugly artworks for megaman 1 and 2, yours is one the best actually. I will attach some of them, kek.
>>328About witchaven.
https://lesbird.github.io/capstone/ No.443
>>441Did people use the ZX Spectrum much professionally? It seems like it would have been a huge pain to use with those membrane keys.
No.449
>>447Oh, I wasn't aware of that.
No.465
>>441I really love the form factor of those old home computers. I wish I could build a PC in that style but then you just end up with a laptop without a screen. I've been thinking of getting those new C64 minis but I don't know BASIC.
No.466
>>465>I really love the form factor of those old home computers.Same. It's neat how self-contained they were.
>I wish I could build a PC in that style but then you just end up with a laptop without a screen.It seems like something like that would be a pain to fix if you had to open it up.
No.471
>>466I wonder if a sleeper PC build would be possible with one of those things. I've heard there are tons of unused Commodore cases you can just buy off the shelf. I guess it would have to be something simple and heat would be an issue.
No.475
>>465I like the keyboard computer form factor. It's actually making a minor comeback with DIY cyberdecks and the Framework motherboard. There's even an Apple patent. I have the C64X with a RasPi 5 inside.
No.571
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No.572
>>571Damn bro, this
is vidya.