"Oh hella shit, boys, my new motherboard is off limits."
"Do you mean that it does not conform to industry standards making it unsuitable for interoperability with other PC hardware?"
"No, I mean that it has snake truck."
This motherboard renders space motorcycles so fast that your monitor can only display the tailpipes.
"Hey guys are you sure it's okay to make an orbital platform out of garden hose?"
"Shhhhkkkk...krrssshhh...I am a spaceman, over. Do you read I am in space now."
BEHOLD! WHERE ONCE WERE PANTS NOW ONLY WIZARD SHAME!
This is basically the same outfit I wear to speed-dating sessions.
This card comes complete with a liter of ayahuasca and a time-limited demo of All Your Life's Mistakes, Joel, Yes You 3D (Windows-only).
The sad thing about the Bikini War of 2078 was that all human females had evolved perfectly T-shaped pelvises, leaving the Power Pooch wearable by only a select few.
LUNCH GUUUUUUUUUUN!!
Oh, hey. Didn't see you there. I was out flying this steel-belted radial out to farm some sweet space nugs. This may sound crazy, I know, but maybe you could come back to my hanger and we can... Oh, sure. No, I understand.
And the award for the best mainboard goes to...MAINBOARD.
I don't know what sort of technology it takes to incapacitate a robot with bordeom, but Sapphire has done it. Sold.
This box is actually fine. By modern standards it is downright demure. Spaceships are the Helvetica of motherboard box art design.
Hey. Asshole. This videocard made a robot jizz bullets. On Mars. Think you can... No, you can't. Fuck you.
BONUS GALLERY: AWFUL SOFTWARE INTERFACES
"Is Virus Barrier X5 counting?"
"Let me check."
"Yes."
In fairness, one shouldn't expect a company named "Razer" to have a software panel that isn't white-on-black and shaped like a food tray from Alternate Earth Wendy's.
"What does our application do? That's right: it measures. And what else measures? Bingo: bathroom scale. And is the most high-tech way to step on a scale? Fuck yes it's Dr. Scholls Massaging Gel insoles. Give that man a gold star. Also: airplanes go fast. Let's make this happen, people."
“All Your Life’s Mistakes, Joel, Yes You 3D”
Amazing. Thunderous applause, Joel.
I do not have a flickr account, but must bring this to your attention:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/the-gallery-of.html#comments
Jesus, Rob with the dark horse!
i puked up a lung, i laughed so hard. keep it up, joel. can’t find this brand of blessed insanity anywhere else.
i always used to find it more embarrassing to walk around with a graphics card than, say, the christmas issue of hustler when i used to trick out my pc
“…robot jizz bullets.” and “Is Virus Barrier X5 counting?” made me laugh the most. Excellent job on the captions.
All this goes through my mind each time I walk into the local PC component warehouse…
I wish it were possible to ban 3D Studio or Maya in Taiwan.
One time I tried to make a robot jizz bullets. Lets just say that job is best left to the professionals.
MAINBOAAARD!
“…made a robot jizz bullets. On Mars. ”
That is my new favourite phrase.
Last time I upgraded, I got that #1 monster truck, which was amusing and groan-inducing. I also got a FoxConn 7900gs which had a rather attractive abstract box, higher-quality packaging, and a similar design on the card. I was impressed.
LeadTek has always loved putting those wizards and sorceresses and the like on their boxes.
Re #3: That’s not a garden hose; that’s a Habitrail or CritterTrail tube. Also, regarding that spaceship package: I can’t pinpoint the exact piece of art referenced, but that spaceship’s gotta be a John Berkey.
MSI makes some of the most horrendous looking tweaking apps in the business.
The awful interfaces bonus bit absolutely NEEDS to include the Asus BIOS flash utility’s interface. GAWDAWFUL… it makes me wanna gouge my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon.
Feel free to send in any suggestions and I can add them to the post. Or add them to the BBG Flickr pool!
Genius captions.
You guys forgot the best(worst) boxart of all time!
http://www.compucityco.com/APOLLOGeForce4MX440-8X.jpg
Good article!
TruckChase!
Reminds me of the boxart for one of my old video cards (think it was my GeForce FX 5200). Yes, it was a space ship; specifically it was a very blatant mashup of an X-wing starfighter and Sebulba’s podracer from Episode I (and would have been obvious as such to any techie Star Wars fan).
While I don’t disagree that motherboard and graphics card boxes generally tend to be of the ridiculously bad nature, I have to disagree with a few of your “bad” choices. Most of these do happen to be pretty horrific examples of 3D art, however a few are actually 3D art pieces from very well known 3D artisis that have been extensively viewed and profiled on popular 3D websites such as http://www.cgtalk.com and had their work published in books the likes of Expose and Elemental (http://www.ballisticpublishing.com).
Specifically “Lunch Gun”, or as it’s actually called “Mariner Project” by Faosto De Martini. If you go to his site (http://www.fausto3d.com/home.html) you will find that that particular image started as a personal project that landed him a job working at Blizzard.
The “V Bikini” happens to also be a pretty well known piece though the name of the artist escapes my mind at the moment.
While you’re laughing at the truly bad ones, you may have fun nitpicking on the good pieces, being on a roll and whatnot. But what you should realize is that in the 3D community these pieces of art are very well known and quickly recognized. As a result, your initial point becomes somewhat diluted.
Just FYI 😉
I never cared. Maybe they know it too- customers buy these sorts of components based on specs, performance and reviews. I know (at least for me) I always know days in advance what exactly I will buy, before I have any clue what the box looks like 😛
Thanks for the great laugh! I’ve thought about how bad these kinds of box art were for years, just in the back of my mind. Great article.
That damn CoreCenter is the most awefull load of rubbish that I have ever seen. My current pc is still running it – an 865pe-neo2v… None of the setting changes last beyond your next reboot and I had to change the settings file manually and lock it as read-only to SYSTEM to achieve anything. MSI do not know software! 😀
I’m nominating x-lite for worst interface.
http://www.counterpath.com/13
It’s a software Voice Over IP phone, complete with tiny, shiny digital buttons and a fake-lcd display obscured by the shadow of the imaginary plastic housing.
All the menus, not just the program’s interface, have that classy Game-And-Watch feel. (Apologies, Nintendo, you did it better).
That’s okay, though. If you find and press the right little fake-injection-molded stud on the display, you can turn on the backlight, in your choice of colors.
Better turn it off when you’re done, though, or you’ll run your pretend battery down.
To be fair, I understand it’s a powerful softphone, and it’s free. Asterisk VOIP server users have adopted it as a standard tool. But it’s still a boneheaded design.
Thanks for listening.
-CN