New Mass Effect 2 cover art is not the best we've seen

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Home Artsy Fartsy

7:30 PM on 11.17.2009, Brad Nicholson

86 comments

New Mass Effect 2 cover art is not the best we've seen photo

#Artsy Fartsy #Mass Effect #PC #Xbox 360

Take a gander at the worst cover art this side of the galaxy.

Just kidding. I’ve long believed that excellence in cover art wretchedness belongs to whoever was doing the stuff for fantasy author R.A. Salvatore’s earlier fiction, and to some degree the wizard who scribbled on the front of John Marco’s stuff, but Mass Effect 2’s new cover is no good either. It just isn’t Siege of Darkness-level bad.

This is indeed the new cover art for Mass Effect 2 -- a not-so-subtle difference from what was revealed moons ago. As you’ll notice, the Krogan is no longer featured and Shepard looks like he’s been hitting the gym instead of doing that whole suicide mission thing.

Not that I would complain about someone going to the gym. Good for you, Shepard.

[image]

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next 50 comments

85 comments | showing # 1 to 50

Death by Yeti

that is rather bad

JesterHead

Dear god.

Well, I'll be buying the limited edition, so whatever.

mOnion

ew

looks like the box art for a dvd set for a space soap opera.

Xzyliac

All the more incentive to shell out the extra $10 for the CE edition.

prolifikstudio

More explosions, more action, more cow boy antics MASS EFFECT 2 EXTREEEM!

That's the kind of corn sauce this bull shit cover says.

Scion of Mogo

that made it past an editor? that's terrible...

wanderingpixel

Bad cover art is a Mass Effect tradition.

Necron117

Thank god for the LE edition.

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?

Stahlbrand

He looks like a football player, Madden 2120 anybody?

They could keep it classy and minimal like the menu system or something, then people would think it was something boring if they were unfamiliar (ie. no parents would pick it up for their son's videogame machines this christmas).

Hopeless Savage

oh god it's not going to go to shelves like this is it

Zarathustra

So glad I preordered the collector's edition. Yikes.

TheJesusNinja26

This looks like the cover to a Star Wars novel mixed with Danielle Steele romance or something. Gosh that is awful!

I didn't even know there was a CE edition, but will look into it now. You can always turn it inside out, or use your SKILLZ and create your own and put it in the sleeve.

xdarkxwarriorx

this is why graphic design is important. i dont mean graphics like in game graphics, i mean like box art etc. they obviously have a pretty shit advertising / marketing department at EA doing all their art. or its done in house at the dev studio. whoever it is, theyre doing a really poor job. they should hire out and get a company that could do it better.

i mean just look at that "2" in the logo. good god...

mass 2 effect. good job, jackasses.

ThunderHeartXI

The cover for the first Mass Effect wasn't great either but this... this is just plain awful. Like everyone else has said, I'm getting the limited edition with the sexy ass cover art.

Alexei Nazarov

CE it is.

It's not bad, but its just... blergh. Also, who the heck is that girl? She's def. an improvement on the hillbilly-special Ashley.

MrSadistic

Well like all these other weirdos, I'm gonna get the CE. The box art sorta looks like the cliche lame DVD movie box art for an epic movie.

BiroBiro

why put sheppards face on the cover if we edit his face right at the beggining of the game (I presume)? I mean, that will not be the sheppard of my game and wont be for many of you, so, whats the point? he can be a woman for all I care

covah

Well, we have a contender for worst box art of 2010, already. Gah, how hard is it to come up with something that doesn't look like shit? I almost want to buy the LE just for the fact that its box art is much better

gamadaya

@wanderingpixel:
You mean a Bioware tradition?

Spike941

Drizzt shoutout? YEAH! Everyone stop playing your inferior games and go read REAL entertainment!

TewDee

I may buy the limited ed. just to not have to look at that.

Electrium

Remember this?

New box art doesn't look so bad now, eh? >_> Collector's Edition for me either way though, so it doesn't matter.

KIHP

It was my birthday last month so I got a nice 25% off my ce order when it was finally confirmed so including shipping only $52.

Electrium

My bad, the thumbnail still showed the old one! Here:

Definitely an improvement...but still.

-PL-

Getting it on steam, don't care about boxart

yay for exclusives

Xzyliac

@Electrium
Yeah I was thinking the same thing but still.

I wish the box art didn't feature Shepard at all since Shepard is a custom character.

My Rayne Shepard is way more badass looking than that douche.

B-Radicate

For as much shit the cover to the first game got, at least it had a subtle beauty to it that was reminiscent of other classic space tales like certain Star Wars posters and such. This looks like a dime store novel. Ick.

Maybe they're using it to push more people toward the sick as shit special edition. It'd almost be worth it for the cover swap alone at this point.

Liam Allman

I think that it fits the retro space opera theme. And I'm an artist so it's my job to be pretentious about this sort of thing.

goodgamer77

You know, on Steam, we don't have to worry about cover art.

somnambulist

I actually don't mind it so much. I'm sure they were probably going for the campy pulp sci-fi look with the cover a bit anyway. Also that green fish guy looks cooler than that new Krogan that was on the old cover. I'm not sure about the girl on the cover though. She looks cooler in the screen shots I've seen. Maybe it's just the pose. It just doesn't quite work for me.

KingSigy

Wow, that is positively ugly.

RichardBlaine

Excellent article title; perfectly encapsulates the reaction I had (Not the best I've seen...). To be fair though, Mass Effect seems to have always been billed as a high octane, sci-fi, B-movie experience. Though stupid looking, the cover pretty accurately reflects that. Though that's not to say I wouldn't have preferred something with a little style.

Arianol

I think I'm the first here to say that I don't see what all the fuss is about. It looks fine to me. Given, I still Haven't played the first Mass Effect so I'm not familiar with the characters, but as cover art goes this isn't all that bad. I would remove the ugly red box around the "2" in the title, but that's all I can see that's terribly wrong with it.

Anyone care to enlighten me as to what makes this so wretched?

Necros

Still just as bad. Looks like the generic sci-fi novels you can find anywhere for cheap. Just like the last cover did. Thank god for the special edition cover.

LsTr Of SmG

It's not awesome but it's not all that bad. It's just a bit average. This, now THIS is a bad videogame cover:

Jon B

It could be worse...

Paroxysm

It looks a little awful.

SASUGA RIVAL

whoa... That's not even passable.

And I hate how they keep trying to pimp their "white bread" default protagonist in a game where you can totally customize the look of your character. Makes me think my own experience isn't the "true" one and I like to keep up my solipsistic facade.

Is it too hard to slap a helmet on the guys head? Keep it mysterious? Worked for Halo.

ace of knaves

That's pretty damn bad. If I knew nothing about the game, that cover would make me overlook it immediately.

Ghost Maker

i was thinking LE/CE too

maybe terrible box art was a ploy to get people to buy the better box art editions?

you win again bioware...

LsTr Of SmG

@ Jon B

Is it bad that I actually quite like that? ^^'

Skagzilla

I don't think it's bad necessarily, it just feels...gung-ho generic. All it feels to say is "look at us, we're cool dudes (and dudette) going to do cool stuff!". The original's cover at least had a space backdrop to give some sense of scale and how large the playing field would be.

Asmo

This won't stand. I'm going to boycott.

bluemeep

Ugh.

AfroWalrus

AngelsDontBurn inspired me.

Rogue Trooper

I actually liked the cover of the first game but this doesn't come close to that.

l0cke

I will buy this on Steam for sure. Hopefully they don't find a way to make a 16x16 icon ugly.

Naim Master

The female soldier kinda looks like the lesbo Huntington girl from Doctor House...

Ball Buster

Too much brown on the cover. Also, the dude and the alien look like they wanna take all my money. Grand Theft Intergalactic Cruiser, anyone?

Jizl Tizl

Wow. WTF is Miranda smiling at?

Yea, this cover sucks. They probably did it on purpose to get more people to buy the more expensive editions lol.

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