Old Game box art, vol. 23

Wasteland (Interplay, 1988)

Before Fallout, there was Wasteland, a game set in the post-nuclear war United States, in a world stuck in the perpetual 80s. You set in the worn boots of a group of desert rangers, who have become defacto peacekeepers of their part of the Mojave desert.

From their base located in an old prison, they travel out to see what is ailing the world of today, seeking out people to help, mutants to kill and perhaps even the world to save, as far it can be saved after a nuclear war. 

The game itself is a party-based RPG, where the world is shown from the top down. You travel the world to different locations, where you meet all kinds of people, from friendlies to villains, and get to solve their problems, with either brains or brawn. Usually by brawn.

The rather striking, red, orange, and yellow, box cover was painted by Barry E. Jackson, who has also illustrated many movie posters, done cover art for albums, and all other kinds of concept art and design work. He has a rather comprehensive portfolio for people to peruse and it seems he is still working hard. 

When Brian Fargo crowdfunded the sequel for Wasteland, one of the rewards was a rescanned print of the original cover. While there were a couple of decades between Wasteland and Wasteland 2, the 2nd one came out in 2014, and it has since gotten the 3rd game as well.  

Battle Master (1990, Personal Software Services)

Here's a game I don't know much about. It is something of an early squad-based strategy game, where you control a group battling against all kinds of monsters and humans. Stylistically, it reminds me of games like Dune 2 and Command And Conquer without the base building. And you the maps have caves and other places you can enter to fight and loot. 

In the beginning, you can choose your squad, filling it with characters that fit your game style the best. Then you head on to tackle your enemies. I guess it might have a plot as well, but I'd figure it's just some flavour for the real-time combat. 

The box art was done by Chris Achiellos, a British illustrator, whose works were seen in Heavy Metal magazine and on book covers. Fantasy and glamour were his main gotos. He also did some concept work for movies, most notably for the Heavy Metal movie and Willow. The poster for Heavy Metal, portraying Taarna riding with the giant bird, was done by Achiellos. He died in 2021 at the age of 74.

Temple of Terror (1987, Adventure Soft)

Unlike what you'd imagine from the box art done by Chris Achiellos, Temple of Terror is an old, text-based adventure game by Adventure Soft. So, in this case, there's an actual story for you to follow, when you, as the hero chosen by sage Yaztromo, set out to free the lands from the evil grip of Malbordus, who sounds like someone who smokes too much. 

So, while you do apparently need to meet all kinds of monsters on your way to do whatever you do with Malbordus, you get to do all that with the sophistication of 1980s parser-based text adventuring, where your biggest puzzle is trying to guess what limited vocabulary the developers could fit for the game. While the game does have graphics, it was released on Spectrum and Commodore 64, they aren't anywhere near the style of the fantastic cover art with the bug-eyed snake-man. But that's what these covers were made for in the first place: to make people think of certain art styles to prop up the limitations of the computers of the time.


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