BioWare has released the “final” box art for Mass Effect 2 although we were never under the impression that the previous box art wasn’t the final version. Now, we’re not talking Collector’s Edition here, that will apparently stay the same…No, we’re talking standard edition and honestly, the new cover appears to be less dynamic than the previous one IMO. The new art features Commander Shepard, Thane the Assassin, and Miranda on the planet Tuchanka while ditching the violent and unpredictable Krogan Grunt in the process.
Of course, it’s all a matter of opinion, but I for one thought the old cover delivered more of the “gritty”, “desperate”, “dangerous” vibe while the new box art looks more like a poster for the SyFy movie of the week…I think it’s the colors or something…
What do you all think? Let your opinion be known in the comments below.
Mass Effect 2 is slated to hit store shelves in North America on January 26, and on January 29 in Europe for the PC and Xbox 360.
Yup, old cover was definitely superior.
Far superior.
i agree, the old cover does sell the game better. and i have a feeling its not just the colors. if you take a look at the facial expressions of the three characters on the lamer cover, they all have very indifferent looks on their faces. shephard looks like hes pondering the answer to a tough math problem, and the other two appear to be almost apathetic to the situation at hand. they all look like faces straight out of modern day love soap/novela, and it doesnt evoke the desperation and determination that should be present.
Looks like a hundred other movie covers i’ve seen. I would have liked to see them go with something subtle and meaningful in context with the game. Both looks don’t invoke a sense of science fiction greatly, but at least the first one was a better effort.
They keep going on about this being the ‘dark sequel’ in the trilogy and they’ve gone and redesigned the cover to be all warm and awkward. They should have just messed with shepards face/position on the original, that’s all that was really off about it.
Eh I’ll be getting the collectors edition anyway.
This article got me wondering about the box art of the first game. After looking at it again I have to see that it is incredibly cluttered. I mean it’s to the point where you could be interested by it and pick it up saying,
“oooOO what’s that, who’s he, can I fly that, you think we get to go there, what’s with those symbols”
Incredibly over done. There are actually 2 planets on the cover, as if they were accounting for the fact that people may not recognise the horizon behind shepherd as a silhouette of a planet.
Makes me think that they have a different approach to the box art after taking into consideration the actual game. Which subsequently reminded me of the article on EBA regarding what Yasuhide Kobayashi (VP of Sony Japan) thought of the marketing box art of ICO in the US and how it contributed to the game going unnoticed by the mass public.
Just goes to show that you can’t please all the people all the time. And those people usually turn out to be gamers.
I don’t particularly like either cover, most game covers suck though. I don’t know why they go with putting the faces of the characters, I always prefer when they do a stylised logo like for Dragon age. The simpler the better, unless its the borderlands cover, that one rules.