20 Things Only 30-Something Gamers Will Understand
6. Covers Looked Nothing Like The Game
Mostly the boxes, cartridge and cassette cases for video games in the 80s looked stunning, like a poster for a motion picture or something from Blade Runner.
Covers for Ocean's Chase HQ, Bayou Billy and even Phoenix on the Atari 2600 were so beautifully drawn works of art that would make Michelangelo weep.
They looked so captivating that all the kids on the bus ride back from town would gaze in wonder at what adventures lay in store later that evening.
Sadly the graphics were decades behind the reality but in truth nobody cared. This was the era of imagination.
Elite was a prime example. A yellow rectangle framed a few white dots, some white sprites and a couple of blocky red lines but this was all a player needed to fend off a Thargoid invasion with a deadly destructive laser beam.
It was the same with the eponymous Space Invaders title which has since been reimagined more times than Doctor Who's console room.
The cover suggests an all-consuming mothership ready to wipe out the human race but when it's booted up it's nothing more than a jerky invasion with only three pixelated shields to hide behind.
So basic, so nerve-wracking, so simple and so raw. The bleak reality of what lay beyond the alien cover is the reason why games like these have stood the test of time.