So Keith could have done some predictable spaceship shooting bullshit that would have been like every other game out there. Keith was not a gamer, and, in fact, none of us were in our agency. But Keith was a brilliant idea guy and always was. We knew the game didn’t have a lot to offer, but we wanted to make the package arresting. Keith called this kind of thing the “heavy huh factor.” If we couldn’t do anything else, we’d try and get the potential purchaser to stare at the package and try and figure out what just happened. Nothing to differentiate them from each other. Walmart, etc.). Most of the games back then were in a look-alike category: same genre, same kind of graphics.
The package was also used to help Kemco sell the game to retailers, so it had to make the buyers think the game would sell at their stores (i.e. We wanted people to pick up the package, get engaged with the story, and buy the damn game. Some were good, and some were not good. Weaker games needed more help graphically to get them to stand out on the retail shelf. My ad agency had the Kemco account, and our task was to develop packaging and marketing materials for over 40 titles. Kemco would typically buy their games from 3rd party developers in Japan. Here’s what he had to say about his experience working on the project with Mr. What the hell were these beautiful bastards thinking?!? It took a bit of time, but I eventually managed to get into contact with Matt Guss, one of the two individuals responsible for this thing. The image had almost nothing to do with the contents of the actual game. The Phalanx Pheller was, once upon a time, Santa fucking Claus.īefore I get too far ahead of myself, let’s go back to the Phalanx box art. They mentioned that the old man on the cover had previously worked with one of them, Keith Campbell, on a photoshoot for a Christmas album. I first came across the two men behind the notorious Phalanx box art from an old issue of EGM where they had taken part in a much-to-brief interview about their experience. A lot of the industry’s past has ended up forgotten and swallowed by the cold, hard, ever-hungry bitch known as time, but some of it is still floating around in the written word. The story begins back before the internet had become popularized, and, in the world of video games, magazines were still king. Around these parts, that man is affectionately known as The Phalanx Pheller, and that’s how I’ll be referring to him from here on out. This is largely due to, Destructoid user, ZombZ’s almost fetishistic obsession with the old, banjo-wielding man on the cover. This work of genius has become something of a local legend around the Destructoid community. It’s one of the only instances where a game’s artwork is talked about more than the actual game itself. Obviously, these people are, objectively, extremely wrong. The infamous cover for the North American release of Phalanx on the Super Nintendo is constantly featured on lists of the “worst” video game covers of all time.
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