Bioshock
Bioshock will go down in history as one of the most atmospheric video games ever made. You explore an underwater city, while its crazed citizens and machines are trying their best to kill you. The box art itself shows the two most iconic creatures you can see while you are roaming - a Big Daddy and a Little Sister. This exact Big Daddy model might not be the most common one but they are certainly your greatest enemies, while the Little Sisters will provide you with a moral dilemma(they are still creepy though). All in all, a great game and a great art.
Borderlands 1 and 2
Borderlands is a first person shooter, which relies heavily on loot gathering and relentless humor. What you are about to go through is captured perfectly in the box art - a psycho is seemingly splattering his brains out, but instead of blood you can see both the main characters and enemies, who will be encountered inside the game. Of course, the mood is also shown, the light colors tell us the game won't be overly serious and the characters themselves look kind of goofy and fun. Borderlands delivers on all promises.
Doom
Doom is a classic, no doubt about that. As a lonely space marine you need to clear the world from the hordes of Hell. It is as basic as it can get and the box art follows suit by showing our main guy making his last stand against the horned monstrosities. That other marine in the background might as well be non- existent. Doom is brutal, challenging and most importantly fun even today with some mods. If you haven't played it as a kid you've missed a lot!
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
The Grand Theft Auto series are known for its varied gameplay and great box arts. There are just so many things going on! San Andreas is considered the best though and for a very good reason. It breaks from the genre a bit by allowing you to play as an African-American gangster, who needs to take control over his hometown. Everything that needs to be known about the game is put right in front - a police helicopter, a prostitute, a gangbanger, a drive-by shooting. The game had some mixed reviews to show but overall it is a great American past time.
Heavy Rain
If the title didn't give you enough clues already, the box art will. It is a moody game about a killer, who kidnaps young boys and forces their fathers to complete some very painful challenges if they want to see their kid again. The nickname of this scum? The Origami Killer. What is there on the box art? An origami and the cheerful 15(which means the game is not appropriate for people under this age by the way). The only other things that can be seen are darkness and rain, both will feature a lot during your playthrough.
Saints Row IV
There is something about the Grand Theft Auto series and its competitors. There is just so much going on in their box art, like the developers want to capture the interest of the exact demographic that enjoys freedom and fun. Well, one thing is for sure, Saints Row is crazier than GTA, for good or bad. This particular cover is pure gold, showing us what every male gamer(and movie watcher) wants to see - a badass main character, guns, explosions, aliens and hot chicks, all in the name of America. Hell Yeah!
Assassin's Creed III
The Assassin's Creed games have always been kind of out there due to the strange connection between the present day and medieval times. The box art of the previous installments was mostly focused on stealth and subterfuge, surrounding our assassin main characters with silhouettes, and shades. Not the third game. In this one Connor, our protagonist, is using Native American weapons to kill some guy right in the middle of a heated battle. An ambiguous cover for an ambiguous game, which gives you the opportunity to fight in the American Revolution and interact with some pretty important faces from the history lessons.
Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami pays homage to the 80s with its colorful neon graphics and old school point of view from the top. The game is also one of the most violent on the market and the box art follows suit. It depicts a scene, where a guy has been chopped up in the middle of the road and our masked protagonist is getting ready to fight a horde of funky looking killers. With a woman in one of his hands and three other masked figures looming into the background. It looks beautiful and even though it can fool you into thinking the game has some amazing graphics, it is still a very nice piece of artwork, which explains everything that happens in the game in a nutshell.
L.A. Noire
You'll be excused if your first thought was that you are looking at the poster of a noir movie. The box art is just that awesome and fitting. You have the damsel, the hardboiled detective, the crime scene with a dead body and of course a whole lot of tension oozing from the colors. As the aforementioned detective, you'll be walking around solving cases, getting into fights and shooting people in a true 1940s style of crime solving, and police work. The game is amazing in its unique appeal and the box art only adds to the initial hype.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
One word: epic. We've all seen the Star Wars movies and know how grand, and emotionally investing they can be. It all starts with the cover of course. Bioware did a similar job here, starting with an amazing box art and following it with an even more amazing game. We have our big menacing villain, our jedi heroine, a bunch of robots and aliens, space ships, a promise for battle, and a big payoff. A shame that this galaxy far far away is so much more interesting than our mundane real world.
