iOS App: Dark Summoner by Ateam Inc.

Once again I'm bending my own rules because for some reason or other the VIDEO CARD BOX ART INDUSTRY has collapsed. (Perhaps it's based in some country with an unstable economy?) There's really a general lack of worthwhile box art coming out these days.

Luckily, I was pointed to this fantastic bit of work! (I know, it's not a video card, whatev.)

So, picture this:

You're out on a date. You're at a malt shop. You're happily chatting it up with your date, sipping your oreo snickerdoodle caramel mocha malt. You pop a few fries in your mouth. Your phone vibrates. You reflexively reach into your pocket and pull it out to see who's calling...

AND A GIANT RED SATAN CLAW HAND REACHES OUT OF YOUR PHONE AND INTO YOUR SOUL, REPLACING IT WITH SEARING HOT LIGHTNING DEATH.

Or at least that's what I assume this app does. Maybe it's a game. I dunno, I didn't read the details that closely, as I was busy fearing for my soul.

Let's rate this thing as best we can... Perhaps I'll have to make a new scorecard for app artwork?

GUYS!!!! Let's total this thing up! I have a feeling this is going to set a new precedent!

+8 for Fictitious Monsters (they're EVERYWHERE!)
+2 for Energy Bursts (I only see 2? It's hard to tell what with all the fire and lightning)
+15 for Armor (Honestly, I lost count of how many characters are in this image, but let's assume they're all coated in enchanted Adamantium Mithril Helms)
+1 for Lightning
+1 for Fire
+3 for Weapons (I see a sword IN THE LOGO OF THE GAME. How badass is that??)
+3 for Wizards those girls are wizards right? Or is that the same girl 3 times?)
+1 for whatever you wanna call that glowing blurry claw mark thing


Total: 34 — A NEW RECORD!!!

Perhaps all of the video card box art artists have gone the way of the App?

MSI XPOWER II (or: Cheating At Life)

I'm going to go the extra mile and include not just one, but THREE face melting images to burn into your retinas, all thanks to the artistic masters at MSI.

Feast your eyes on these babies. (Click 'em for full size)

First and foremost, you're probably saying "but, that's not a video card!" And you'd be right. I'm an adult. I'm willing to admit when I'm at fault. That is not a video card. It's a motherboard. It doesn't even have some crappy built-in video card which I can pretend exempts me from the rules of this blog. Whatever. 

You might then say to yourself "I refuse to pay attention to any more of this charade until you show me a goddamn video card box!"And that's entirely within your purview, go back to moderating Wikipedia.

For those of you who are cool with judging motherboard box art for a moment, let's check this baby out.

The theme of this box is clearly that of shattering all expectations. You expected some sort of crystal orb? HA! We smash your crystals to pieces! Shards in yo' face, fool!

How much power does this motherboard have anyway? X! That's how much! but that's not all, it's got that bitchin' II after it! Which makes me wonder if this is X to the power of II? or is it merely a Roman XII with "power" crammed in the middle? or perhaps it's X multiplied by II to give us XX? Hard to say. Only MSI can tell us for certain.

If you'll direct your attention to the back side of the box, you'll want to take notice of the feature just right of the "Super Pipe".  Notice anything unusual? Of course you did. There are SIX GOLDEN BULLETS strapped to this motherboard. Clint Eastwood would use this motherboard to take out punks on his front lawn, that's how badass MSI engineers are. Don't fuck with MSI engineers.

Let's check out the scorecard for this thing.

1 point for ice (or whatever that shattering material is)

2 points for energy bursts (one big one, one small one)

1 point for spikeballs (maybe? I dunno, it seems kinda spikey and ball-esque)

1 point for fire (there's some reddish firey glow in there, we'll count it)

2 points for X's, though if it's X to the power of 2, then who knows how many points this really is.

6 points for bullets. BULLETS. ON A MOTHERBOARD!

Total: 12

BONUS ROUND

Assuming you're willing to concede the motherboard oversight, you may also be willing to stretch your mind a little further and check out this other gem of badassery from MSI.

HO LEE SHAZBOT.  Seriously. Click that image to see this badboy in all it's glory. The details and minutiae are staggering.

Mock stress marks on the edges? Check.
Mock communist propaganda? Check.
Random year in the future mentioned? Check.
Monster? Check.
Futuristic armored warrior? Check.
Fire? Check.
Gun? Check.
Crowd of rebellious looking refugees? Check.
Bullets on the mobo? FAIL.

It's no XPOWER II, but that artwork still bears some study. Glad to see they opted for the inclusion of bullets in the newer model. Any predictions for what features the XPOWER III will hold?

PNY GeForce 9400GT

The PNY GeForce 9400GT. The "softer side" of the video card industry. Not a weapon or fanged beasty in sight! Unless of course that's a vampire-level-9-elf-angel-space-alien-princess-healer-mage. Can't tell, since her mouth is shut in that Mona Lisa smile. She needs a good fantasy name. Harnessing the power of the webotubes, I have generated a name for her. Henceforth, she shall be Jajaqa of Fairlight!

I think it's safe to say that the binary planet action going on in the background there would likely rip apart any stable orbit system. Jajaqa might wanna think about evacuating whatever rock she's standing on. She looks like the sorta gal with easy access to a spaceship. Maybe one powered by some hawt steampunk olde tyme lookin' propellers and some sort of blimp/zeppelin things. Yeah. One thing's for sure, she's lookin' mighty lonely there. No other life in sight. Not even shrubs. Hey Jajaqa, get some freakin' house plants!

PNY is clearly hoping that lonely gamer dudes will be overcome with the need to keep Jajaqa company on that desolate rock. What better way to do that than through the purchase of a video card?

Let's rate this box, shall we? I have a feeling this isn't going to do so well...

+1 wireframe -- There's some sorta wireframe thing up in the sky there. Perhaps holding the sky up?
+2 spheres -- I count two planets. For those of you arguing to include Jaiaga's breasts, get your own blog.
+1 fictitious "monster" -- she's not particularly monsterish, but she has wings. It'll hafta do.
+1 rendering of hot chick
+1 weapon -- is that thing on her belt a flask or a grenade? We'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say that on Fairlight they drink explosives.
+1 Energy burst -- ok, it's probably just the sunrise, but whatev.
+1 Clouds -- they're faint, but they're in there.

... and a shocking disuse of the letter X! NONE AT ALL. Shame on you PNY.

Total: 8

I'd say that's a very generous 8 too. Jajaqa is never gonna make it in this biz unless she ups her game.

Radeon 9800XT 256MB

This guy multi-tasks hard. Like, so frickin hard. Your "ALT+D,F, F" Excel shortcut is like nothing to him! He spits on your Outlook 'Ctrl+Shift+M' and your regular 'Windows Key + M'. Uhhh, Alt-Tab? Who the efff are you thinking you can even mention Alt-Tab around this guy? Come.....On....Alt-Tab. Can you even conceive of looking so hard while simultaneously crunching all of those numbers in the background?? His built-in vicious accounting stamp and huge Fist/Pen are just waiting to put a fat X on your W-2.

He's kind of like Inspector Gadget in that regard - but, like, imagine if Inspector Gadget had slain the Archangels Gabriel and Tyriel in the Chrono-Ether, eons before the time of mankind - indeed - before the genesis of time itself and stolen their very Halos and forged from them an exo-suit of Indestructible Destruction and Amortization of Unused Assets.

Oh man. That art is intense. It took me 43 hours to write this post because I spent the first 42 of those hours cowering under my desk. Every time I peek out around my cube a MASSIVE steel fist seemingly appears from nowhere and threatens to smash my face in!

Ahhhhhhhh my beautiful face! Gahhh! Oh. Shit. There isn't a huge deadly Pen/Fist flying at me! Its just this epic Robotic Angel of Death on this box art. Whew. The only way to successfully write this post was to keep the blogpost-typing window (that's blog-tech nerd for a window where you type your blog post) scrolled way down so that I don't catch any glimpses of this terribly realistic assault.

Let's do the score quick because I'm about to have a breakdown:

+1 Robot
+1 Fictitious Monster (hes obviously more than just a robot!)
+1 Armor
+3 Weapons (Scyth, Spike Pen, Stamp of Death)
+1 Energy Burst (Shoulder lamps and gleams)
+1 Clouds
+3 X's

Total: 11

What??? This doesn't defeat that lame Minotaur Ruben?? I'm petitioning the board.

I really wanted to give points for the Matrix-Style numbers floating around everywhere, but I'm the Scalia of Videocard box art - letter of the law, not intent. You might say "but couldn't they be interpreted as 'wireframe' or 'energy'??? Yeah, and the right to privacy is the right to abortion you baby killer.

ATI Radeon X800XL

Wow. The crazy bovine-phobia the artist behind this box suffers from is practically off the scale.

Now, I know some of you reading this are gonna say "no, that's just a minotaur." -- and to address that, I've created this short play starring me, as myself, and you as the whiny mythology nerd.

ACT I
Me: Holy shit, look at that crazy vampire cow dude!
You: That's just a minotaur.
Me: Minnow what? Shut up or I'll sic a crazy vampire cow warrior on you.
You: You have no idea what a minotaur is.
Me: You're a minotaur! I'll minotaur you! Your mom's a minotaur!
You: I'm done talking to you now.
Me: Yeah, you better run Señor Minotaur!
You: Your vocabulary is nothing short of amazing.
Me: OH NOS!! A GAZEBO!

[At this point a large and angry gazebo crashes on to the stage and eats your stack of D&D character sheets, your GURPS manual, and your bag of non-standard dice.]

You: Gazebos don't eat! They're a (often octagonal) pavilion structure found in gardens and parks!

[I laugh as the gazebo sits on you and makes you take it back.]

THE END

Whatever nightmarish cow-related experiences the designer of this box suffered from as a child were probably pretty horrific. And hilarious, cuz I mean, c'mon... crazy axe wielding vampire cow? HA!

He looks like he's dressed up for a GWAR concert. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's just the guitar player.

Let's score this baby. I have a good feeling about this one.

+1 Ficticious monster
+1 Predatory animal
+1 Weapon
+1 Armor
+2 Fire (torches)
+1 Clouds (there's some evil red lookin' weather out there)
+1 Spikeball (the end of the axe sure looks like a spikeball to me)
and 1, 2, 3, 4... 5! Five uses of the letter X! (Not counting the 'x' in Pixel).

Which gives us a kickass score of 12!

FINAL SCORE: 12

Well done ATI! Your artistic livestock nightmare vision has paid off. I'm sure this baby is flying off the shelves at this very moment.

BFG NVIDIA GeForce 260 GTX OC MAXCORE 55

When some people think of really really baddass videogame elements to put on a box that will really inspire consumers and move units, they think of Emo Superheros. Enrique, the male model above, is the go-to industry guy for GeForce whenever they need a wizard or superhero with tribal tattoos and poorly proportioned hands.

Enrique is all business on the set. Cameras roll and he immediately begins crying his trademark Shiny Magnetic Tears into his tiny, tiny hands - all while looking completely inconsoleable. He's a total Pro.

Given his tribal tat and shredded delts I'm about ready to confirm the rumor that Enrique started his carrer in the film House-Boat Studs #7 - not that I would watch that but I heard it from somebody don't judge me you are reading about fantasty art on computer hardware boxes.

As far as giving this card a place in the pantheon of Video Card Box art - there were some tough calls to be made. I, for one, am extremely partial to shiny tears and I think they are pretty badass. He also has a kickass helmet with a secure looking chinstrap to ensure that it never comes off in combat or while headbanging to "Fallout Boy." A lot of hard work went into rendering those biceps, and I'm currently pushing the Video-Game Box-Art Judging Association to add "rad biceps" to the scoring card. But, for now, here are the results:

+1 Armor (helmet)
+1 Lightning /Water (lightning tears!)
+2 for energy bursts
+1 Clouds
+1 GeForce GTX +1 maXcore 55- has an X and stands for THE MAXIMUM CORE POWER which is clearly 55

OVERALL SCORE: 7

Where this Card really stands out is in it's X-ecution (yep) we're talking so many X's I thought i was watching Sex In the City reruns (yep again)

Although tied with the Asus Baddass D&D Skeletor Knight Warrior of Total Badness, this piece is a mediocre work salvaged only by excessive energy usage and X inflation. I predict not a crowd favorite.

Zogis GeForce 9400

Oh ZOGIS, how do I love thee? Other graphics card boxes may change their content, they may opt for a sexy girl in a metal bikini, or a cyborg amphibian, but not you ZOGIS. You have found a formula for getting a solid score of "2" every time.

Dragons. Every single box. Not always the same dragon of course, that would be lame. Nope, different dragons for different cards, but that's it. No werewolf. No wizard. No castle. No maiden in distress. Just dragons.

Sometimes they swoop down upon some unsuspecting prey just below the edge of the box (look out Linksys WRT54G Router!)

Sometimes they charge right out of the box towards you, that reptilian eye fixed upon you. Gleaming teeth and claws poised for ripping you apart. "Buy me and cram me in your home computer or I'll rip your fucking lungs out! BREEEEAAAAAWK!" Yeah!

I could probably dedicate an entire sub-blog solely to ZOGIS dragons, but I won't. We'll just stick with this guy for now.

Let's see... he's orangey, hes' swooping down, he's um... got some sorta feathery lookin' action going on in the back there... he likes long walks on the beach, the History category of Trivial Pursuit, and he's allergic to peanuts. We'll name him Raul.

The scoring breakdown:
+2 for a Dragon

Final Score: 2