[Article] Curiosities on covers 8

After a time of rest, the video game curiosities where we will again see some or errors and copies on video game covers.

You can find the rest of the entries in the free PDF magazine Bonus Stage Magazine or on this website, following this link.

I have already seen this movie

As we have seen in previous installments of this section, it is very common to rely on an existing model, be it an actor or a drawing to create cover art, since artists also need models on which to create their art. Sometimes the model line is crossed and people directly try to copy something famous to catch the buyer's attention (and relate it to something they like).

In this article I am going to discuss covers that are clearly inspired by movies to a very high degree, to the point that you can guess the movie just by looking at the video game cover.

In the first article in this section I made a comparison between the covers of Final Fight 2 and Streets of Rage, since they shared many elements, and some of them (like the green sewer bug) could not be pure chance.

Well, I'm putting the covers back Final Fight 2 and Streets of Rage to comment on an element that I overlooked, and that is the fact that the two protagonists are doing the same flying kick. It is also interesting that you look at the pose that Carlos has in Final Fight 2.

If we put the two images together and mirror the second, we will see that the film Sister Street Fighter from 1974 seems to be the source of inspiration for both scenes.

And speaking of flying kicks and mirroring images, what do you think happens if we flip the ninja on the cover horizontally? Ninja Master (1986) and we compare it with the one that appears on the movie poster Enter the Ninja (1981)? Well, they are twin brothers. In fact, if we take the trouble to put them in the same position, we can see how identical they are.

But that's okay, because at least on the cover of Ninja Master They have drawn a kind of warrior with a sword, and no one can take that merit away from him. In fact, that drawing is so good that it fits perfectly with the warrior that appears in the game Storm Warrior (1989).

Did you inspire Ninja Master to Storm Warrior or were both copied from some common image? It's probably the latter, but at the moment I haven't been able to locate it.

Now I will comment on another case of copying the copy, although in this case I would dare to say that it is rather parodying the parody. It turns out that Boris Vallejo's poster for the film National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) is inspired by a fantasy drawing created by Frank Frazetta, to try to give an epic touch to the poster of the comedy directed by Harold Ramis.

The poster of National Lampoon's Vacation in turn was parodied by the third part of Evil Dead, The Army of Darkness (1992), which in turn was the inspiration for the cover of Duke Nukem 3D (1996).

I continue with a couple of “inspirations” that are easier to deduce, since they are based on films that are quite famous, even today.

The cover of Mean Streets (1989) It may seem like an original at first glance, but the truth is that it has a movie-like feel that gives us the feeling of having seen those same elements somewhere else, which is none other than the poster for the movie. blade runner (1982), although he resorted to the trick of mirroring the image so that it would not be so noticeable, but of course if we turn the poster, it is clearly seen.

We have another easily recognizable case in the game Pulseoids (1987) que se basó descaradamente en la película Cazafantasmas (1984) para su portada. Me pregunto si el bicho rojo que aparece en la portada del videojuego también proviene de algún sitio.

A veces cuando te pones a mirar portadas esperando encontrar “inspiraciones”  terminas viendo cosas donde no las hay, de manera que voy a acabar la sección con dos portadas que seguramente sean fruto de la casualidad.

La primera de todas es la increíble portada de Phantis (1987) en la cual vemos una atractiva chica rodeada de pequeños monstruos, que siempre me han recordado a los goblins de la película Labyrinth (1986).

La segunda es del juego Alone in the Dark (2008) a la cual le veo un cierto parecido con la película Bangkok Dangerous del mismo año, aunque ambos productos se llevan solo meses (y parece que el videojuego apareció antes) lo cual hace que sea poco probable que uno de los productos se basase en el otro.