I always get an uncomfortable feeling when I decide I want to walk down the video game aisle and see if there are any news games that have been released recently. One reason why that is is that I always get this feeling that the employees are stalking me and feel the urge to ask me weird stuff while I'm browsing. But the main reason is because I really dislike having box art staring back at me with a manacing look, and this becomes worse when around half of the library being sold seems to have this menacing look.

Of course, video games have a lot of ways of making a good first impression if you just look at them. This is where cover art really matters because it can either make or break a game if you know absolutely nothing about it. If the box art shows the main character performing some kind of action, it will raise interest. If it shows a serene setting with the main character looking at it, it will raise curiosity. If it shows nothing but a close up of a character's face, it tells nothing other than the box art people had nothing better to do than mess around with the zoom function of their computers.

Take Killzone 2 for example. The close-up of the Helghast soldier is, although pretty awesome since those guys are cooler than the ISA, rather unorthodox. It tells nothing about the game except that the Helghast have red glowing goggle things and enjoy staring menacingly at other people. On the other hand, there's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Despite the fact that the dude on that is still staring at me with a grimace look and would kill me without a second though, it's still better because it still tells you what the hell this game is about since it has a cool background and guns. Okay, it's not the best box art but it tells you what you're going to be finding in the game.

What goes through box art designer's mind when they decide to go against making something interesting that tells you what the game is about or making an enchanting background to entice us, then they go "Here, have a closeup on a main character/NPC's face?" It's like they want us to research what the game is about before we buy it...or they're against their company and want the game to scare people, I'll never know. Also, if you have a weird looking character like Faith from Mirror's Edge and you decide to post a pretty large closeup of her, that probably isn't good. I've read many posts about how people didn't buy the game because the box art was so appalling and if they did buy it, they did it with the box art facing down on the counter because they were so ashamed. Actually, I'm pretty sure they were trolling but the game still suffered mediocre sales so that's all I have to go on.

Oh, and regarding MGS4, CGI closeup Snake? It's bad.