The 10 most stunning PlayStation covers

When I decided to select ten covers for PlayStation, I felt a sense of elation, as it's a game console that is particularly close to my heart and, in my opinion, one of the foremost retro machines even today; a stylish gadget with a legendary game catalogue. The rules were rewritten with ground-breaking new technology and polygons, 3D characters, superior sound via CD, impressive pre-rendered cutscenes, and last but not least, countless titles that we consider timeless.

But the majority of PlayStation game covers, in hindsight, were not particularly beautiful. Most of them haven't really stood the test of time or aged with dignity, even though many are both ugly and nostalgic. The covers were generally adorned with typical plastic in-game renders of main characters, flashy vehicles, explosions, and crazy logos; each one more ostentatious and "in your face" than the last. Much of this testified to how Sony wanted to profile itself against Sega and Nintendo, with PlayStation being the more "mature" teenager with a cocky attitude in the room. I had to search my soul and what felt obvious from the outset became a real challenge, and yet despite this, I managed to find a handful of covers that I thought stood out in a number of different ways.

10. Final Doom

This cover stood out on the shelf at my local rental shop, where I couldn't rent it because I wasn't old enough (depending on who was behind the counter that day, I should add). I also had some older friends who got past these restrictions for me. Still, I was drawn to the black, military-style cover with a logo that sounded both definitive and violent, promising more of everything. "Beauty lies in simplicity," as is often said, and this delivered a place where demons are cut down with chainsaws or reduced to mincemeat with fists when ammunition runs dry.

9. Silent Hill

I've always appreciated how depraved this is. It's dirty and raw, with a rusty and decayed colour palette and a logo that is both unpleasant and confusingly broken. Something isn't quite right... Indeed, that was the case, as psychological and physical horror reigned supreme, with the thick fog at the time being used primarily to hide flaws and hardware limitations when the environments were designed, which was as clever as it was effective, but has since become a hallmark of the game series, which is still highly relevant today.

8. Tekken 3

I had the entire trilogy of Namco's fighting games and I played the first two day and night, both alone and against my friends after school, or on weekends and summer holidays when we had sleepovers. The covers of the first two were terribly ugly, but third time lucky, as they came up with something that I consider both iconic and cool. It may just be a render of the newly introduced fighter Jin Kazama glaring at you and busy putting on the glove he's going to beat you down with, but he does so by exuding power and confidence, where the overall look and colour scheme has always worked for me, apart from the tribal tattoo.

7. Wipeout 2097

Wipeout roared onto the scene with its futuristic racing, where the covers attracted attention with a futuristic concept and straight lines, polarising a slightly sterile, stripped down, and very clean without any frills approach. It caught the eye precisely because it stood out through its simplicity, but which very much defined Sony's profile when the disc was loaded and the hovercrafts raced forward at 1,000 km/h. 2097, with its wireframe tunnel on the cover, could also be one of those flashy equaliser add-ons for Winamp, for those who remember.

6. Vagrant Story

Squaresoft, as they were called at the time, could have filled half the spots on this list with their covers, even the simpler ones like Final Fantasy VII. The Japanese illustrators, in this case Akihiko Yoshida (still active today at Square Enix), were behind this little work of art. There was a completely different mindset from Japanese studios; with an emphasis on more pride, finesse, and craftsmanship, something that also made many Japanese role-playing games stand out from the crowd both in terms of the beautiful paintings that adorned the boxes, but also as games. Vagrant Story was definitely one of them, on both counts.

5. Gran Turismo

The name of this game alone deserves an award. It's uncompromising and exudes class at a finer, more expensive, and more luxurious segment. Polyphony Digital's decision to print its apt logo as a tyre tread pattern was genius. "The Real Driving Simulator". There was no doubt whatsoever about what the game was about when it rolled onto the scene, however, I didn't particularly enjoy this title at the time. I bought it because of the hype when I was on holiday with my family the same year it came out and I was simply too young to have a driving licence and preferred more light-hearted arcade racing games such as Ridge Racer.

4. Dino Crisis

Capcom got it just right here, namely by riding the wave of Steven Spielberg's acclaimed Jurassic Park, which had captivated the whole world a few years earlier. After Shinji Mikami established himself as the master of horror games with Resident Evil and decided to focus on dinosaurs in a side project, they also chose a cover design that clearly flirted with something unpleasant and familiar that many people recognised. The velociraptor paw next to a pool of blood was as terrifying as it was effective, and yes... it left an impression.

3. Metal Gear Solid

I love Yoji Shinkawa as an illustrator and designer. Without him, all of Hideo Kojima's games would probably have looked radically different. For Solid Snake's... not debut, but definitely major global breakthrough, the cover is as exciting, insidious, accurate, and stylishly executed as ever. The silhouette with elements of what resembles a black and white thermal camera is a cover that has gone down in history. It was one of the very best games for the PlayStation, and I still dream of a lavish remake that does it justice, unlike the abomination that was The Twin Snakes for the Gamecube.

2. Resident Evil

What are we actually looking at here? Is it a Rorschach inkblot test and what on earth is that weapon Chris Redfield (who I assume it's supposed to be) is holding in his hands? It's messy and it's confusing but for me, it's one of those covers that defined the PlayStation era. I see spider legs and shadows that I suspect belong to those bloody frog monsters that decapitated you from an angle you didn't see coming. The horror in the wide-open eye staring straight into the terror went down in history and I love the composition. Resident Evil turns 30 this year, and what else is there to say other than congratulations and here's to the next 30!

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Here we have it, the cover that takes the cake, in my subjective opinion. Alucard, also known as Dracula's son, graces Konami's, to this day, unsurpassed Castlevania game, which is a pure delight to the eye. The richness of detail leaves nothing to be desired, with the castle in the background and the burnt-down candlesticks in the foreground, where the gothic splendour of the game series and the style-defining reboot of the brand revolutionised the genre. The term "Metroidvania" was coined after unabashedly borrowing from Nintendo's Metroid series in terms of game layout and design mechanics. Do you happen to own this game? If so, you're sitting on a real gold nugget that you should put on a shelf and maybe frame it too, but definitely look at it every day all the same. It's worth money today, a lot of money, so hold on to it.

Which covers do you remember most fondly from Sony's PlayStation, the steamroller that took the world by surprise?