Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan When I was in art school studying illustration, there were two companies in the San Francisco Bay area that every artist dreamed of working for: Lucasfilm and Atari. Yes, THAT Atari. At the time, Atari was The Future. Even those most of the game graphics looked pretty boxy and pixelated and not too far removed from Pong, it was the illustrations on the box covers and game manuals that "sold" the story, the drama, the adventure. Like Disneyland attraction posters, they whet the appetite of the viewer. Atari spared no expense hiring the best illustrators of the time, many of whom were also creating illustrations for big budget movies at the time as well. Check them out! The "pre-crash (of the Atari empire)" artwork is just top-notch stuff, beautiful. <a href="http://www.tripoint.org/games/literature/artwork/manual/atari.html" target="_blank">http://www.tripoint.org/games/...ari.html</a>
Originally Posted By BlueDevilSF How cool! I used to spend hours looking at the catalogs Atari used to publish.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan My favorite was "Slot Racers." The game itself was fun, but it was one rectangle boxy, vaguely triangular shaped "car" vs. another, and you'd work through mazes to shoot at each other. Fun game -- but again, not all that removed from Pong, or Tank. But the illustration on the box is what brought it to the next level. Sleek, mag-lev hover cars, screaming down a futuristic freeway, blasting each other with hood-mounted weaponry. Awesome, dude!!!! And look at that cityscape! They need to make "Slot Racers: The Movie" just based on that cover.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan <a href="http://www.tripoint.org/games/literature/artwork/manual/atari/slotracers.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.tripoint.org/games/...cers.jpg</a>
Originally Posted By Elderp Basic Programming I remember that, as if you were going to program the next shuttlecraft launch with that thing!
Originally Posted By Elderp My favorite Atari game was River Raid. Not a cool cover but still fun. <a href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/Booticon/2600riverraid.jpg" target="_blank">http://img.photobucket.com/alb...raid.jpg</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Yeah, Activision had good games, but their covers weren't that "Hollywood movie poster" quality of the Atari games.
