SR4 cover has it's problems, but......, The logo thread inspired this Options

[blakkie]

I was typing up an addemdum to a post in the rate the logo thread, and it occured to me instead i was typing up what was good about the SR4 cover. Where it is an improvement over the past covers.

First, i'll start by the problem i have with the SR1/SR2 logo. When i first saw it on the FLGS shelf i look like some sort of stylised cow skull leading me to believe it was some sort of western genre game like Deadlands. In a full stuffed magazine rack display that logo at the top is more promenent than the picture below. That combined with the juxtiposition of the Pat Benitar gunfight is probably a very large factor in my passing it by at first.

It wasn't till i started playing SR that it occured to me that it was likely a Troll skull. A logo that relies on that much [edit]inside[/edit] info to gronk doesn't seem like a good marketing choice. Sadly the faux West Coast native "S" is another example of that, but to my eye isn't quite as bad at that. YMMV.

I'll also say that the SR3 cover art didn't do a lot for me either to pick up the game. As has been stated often here, the "cartoony" look didn't really put the hook on me.

The SR4 cover is far from perfect. But at least it better communicates what the game is about than SR3 did, and it doesn't have the logo clash that SR1/SR2 did. It covers the magic, the guns, the knives, the wireless VR, the tech (hoving upside down toaster, etc.), the dirty urban future (VTOL, rat, biomedical waste box, grafetti), the oriental influence (now with a bonus pronounciation Easter egg!), and the crime. It even manages to hint at stealth using the disabled camera top-right, something that is difficult and that the SR1/SR2 cover didn't do. It doesn't cover the shaman/hermetic angle much (maybe when viewing the book-in-hand that snake skull necklace on the troll will help? still weak i think), though past covers only had the knee-feather and Disneyized leather outfit in SR1/SR2 in that respect and that could have easily been misinterpreted as just another fashion victim statement.

EDIT: There isn't any hint at the oriental influence in the SR1/SR2 cover, is there? No trolls, orks, or dorfs either. Just a elve (because they look good when done up as an extra from Lost Boys?) and a wolfman in the background.

The natural placement of all the characters is really what made the SR1/SR2 cover (the second best thing IMO is the detail in the bottom left pile of garbage). The highpoint of the cover sure wasn't the glittering left hand of Pat Benitar. That was certainly a much weaker suggestion of magic, and given the pop cultural times made it more like a funked Micheal Jackson thing.

EDIT: The SR4 troll's casting, while better, looks a bit too much like a shock glove or something. Didn't anyone tell the artist that magic is -GREEN-! ;) Or at least magic has some extra swirlies and effects that are far to inefficient to be mistaken as some tech device.

If only the posing and placement of the 4 runners and the opponents felt more natural on the SR4 cover i'd be inclined to say it was very good job. It isn't the massive draw in flash, but the cover in total does talk about the SR world with less miscommunication to those that don't know the game.