By Its Cover: The Best Box Art Of 2012

A Critical Hit: "Welcome back to the only annual box art round-up that attempts to explain why each image is successful from a design perspective. They say you shouldn’t judge a book (or movie, or videogame) by its cover, but that doesn’t keep us from doing it anyways. Not everyone keeps up with the daily videogame news and reviews, and for them a striking or intriguing image is the quickest way to get them to check out the back of the box – or to click for more information. A good cover will at least get someone to look into whether a game is good or bad, while a bad cover can cause a lot of people to completely overlook a good game.

Here are ten covers that are both stylish and attention-getting."

[Snookies12]

Yeah, the Walking Dead has a fantastic cover, but the disc version of the game is HORRIBLE. Can't even play the dang game even though I've owned it since it came out earlier this month.

[digitaleraser]

I hope they patch it soon.

[Snookies12]

Same here, it's a real shame... I've watched someone play it through to the end before, and it's a fantastic story. I actually held off on the digital version when I heard they were doing a disc release later on. That was a bad choice it seems. :\

[DarkBlood]

must be a select user issue i beaten the game but not without its fair share of minor *yet thankfully not so much* problems it

[Snookies12]

For me it has been awful man. It slows down and lags so bad during scenes, the voices won't match up with the mouths, the game even stops at times. It won't load textures every once in a while, and the framerate drops below 10 or something every 20 or 30 seconds of playing for extended periods of time. If it was just in one part like this, I wouldn't mind. This is unplayable for me though.

[DarkBlood]

ah yes those issues would be it, cant say anything about the textures though dont remeber encountering that but i do know the problems you listed im sure i didnt experince till chapter 3 or 4 but i think it was later part of chapter 4

[Brian1rr]

Horrible list theres no AC3 no borderland2 and no mass effect 3

[brettyd]

is this list a joke?

[WeAreLegion]

Why do you say that? Those were all pretty good.

Oh, wait. I forgot that aesthetics are relative. -_-

[WeAreLegion]

Wait. Inversion came out?!?

[Thepcz]

obviously never seen pandoras tower or last story cover art.

[rpd123]

This list was not very good. And Sleeping Dogs definitely had the best box art of the year.

[ajax17]

This list is crap... Mostly.

[erivera1994]

i love the walking deads cover. I agree with it being the best of 2012. Its awesome, i like it better than the exclusive cover.