Exciting Boxing cover (1987) 🔗

Admittedly, the most exciting thing about Exciting Boxing has to be it's inflatable boxer for a controller, but the fact that the cover art was apparently inspired by a Captain America cover is pretty neat, too. (I bet the blow-up dude plays about as poorly as most novelty controllers of the time, anyway.)

Discovered by ‪Rusty Shackles on Bluesky.

Castlevania cover (1986) 🔗

Frank Frazetta's The Norseman is one of the most frequently copied influences among games illustrators, and his appearance on the original Castlevania cover is already fairly well known. There's a few changes to his gait and left arm, and of course Simon Belmont is holding a very different weapon, but the influence is unmistakable. What's not talked about often (yet) is that Dracula's floating head apparently also taps another secret text of video game artists, namely John Buscema's How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, although it seems to be an amalgam of different images. While the grin and overall head shape comes from that grinning dude, the dark lord's hairline and ears more closely resemble Namor, who's sketched in the same book a couple pages earlier.

Super Contra arcade flyer (1987) 🔗

Much like the first game in the series, the artist for Super Contra's promo material clearly understood the assignment, this time really uniting both of the 1980s big muscle action stars on one flyer. Not satisfied with telegraphing the game's influences through a picture, the English version of the flyer also proudly proclaims: "He's not human. He's not alien. He's the predator!!" There's some liberties taken, especially with the faces, but Sly's neckline is still an exact match. The Schwarzenegger stand-in doesn't fit quite as neatly, so either the artist modyfied the pose somewhat, or there might be an obscure alternate still out there that was used as a reference.

Metal Gear cover art (1987) 🔗

The cover for the original Metal Gear may be one of the most widely known and recognized examples that'll ever appear in this gallery. Series creator Hideo Kojima famously being the absolute American action and sci-fi movies freak that he is, it's not at all surprising that it is ripped straight from one of the all time greats from the 1980s, Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese in The Terminator. The character's face and pose are hardly disguised at all, although he does get a few additional tech gadgets strapped onto his combat suit, as well as a comically enlarged barrel on his gun. But my favorite part of this is that there seems to be some strange lighting situation going on over the upper half of Michael Biehn's left thumb, which the artist apparently misinterpreted, leaving Solid Snake with an unusually short digit.

Gryzor / Contra cover art (1987) 🔗

It's often assumed that the iconic Contra title art brings together facsimiles of Arnold Schwarzenegger from Predator and Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo, but don't let yourself be misled by the second guy's dark hair and red bandana: In reality, they're both based off stills from Arnie's movie. The art was originally drawn by the late Bob Wakelin for Ocean's European home computer releases under the title Gryzor. Bob doesn't seem to have enjoyed working on this one too much (source: exotica), but someone clearly must have liked it, as it ended up making its way across the pond onto the official NES cover in the US.