One of the saddest parts of modern gaming has been the decline of ‘big box’ releases. Now, some of you will already know what I mean by this, but for those of you too young to remember, PC games used to be sold in rather large and elaborate packaging.
Why did they do this? Surely this was a waste of money given that such a huge box would only contain a floppy disk or CD-ROM? Well, in the days before the internet, sometimes the box was all you had to judge whether you were going to buy it or not and, as such, publishers used to be a lot of effort into them (as well as the manuals). Put simply, in those days all a game needed to be successful was an eye-catching piece of box-art. Well… most of the time at least.
If this trip down memory lane has, therefore, left you wanting to learn more about this, well, we have some excellent news for you! Retro gaming collector Benjamin Wimmer has posted a website in which you can view 3D images of (nearly) his entire big box PC game collection!
3D Images of Big Box Retro Games
Allowing you to look around the exterior packaging, the website creator Benjamin Wimmer has also uploaded images (where possible) of the interior goodies as well as some of the manuals. In other words, this is about one of the most complete collections and achieves of big-box retro games.
The only mild downside is that with him being German, a significant portion of them are not in the English localization. If you can get past that one fly in the ointment, however, it’s an amazingly nostalgic trip for the older gamers among us.
Even I’ll admit, I immediately gravitated towards this big box copy of ‘The 11th Hour’ for a closer look!
Where Can I Check It Out?
If you too fancy looking up some of your old gaming classics, then you can check out his (truly excellent) website via the link here!
Of course, not every PC game is here. This is, after all, just one persons collection. I still find it amazing though and will undoubtedly be spending a fair bit of time poking through all of this amazing box art today! Largely just to see the games I used to have, of which, the boxes have been long gone!
What do you think? Which was the first game you went for a 3D look at? – Let us know in the comments!
