Another year, another countdown, another birthday.  And I’m boxing it all up, tying a nice little bow around it, and turning the ripe old age of 32 with a celebration of 32 BRILLIANT examples of FANTASTIC video game box art.  Join me, won’t you?

Space Ace (1983) – I didn’t get my greasy little mitts on Don Bluth’s Disney-alike Space Ace until much later, when it decided to be so kind as to grace the Amiga 500, but between the side art adorning the arcade cabinet and the big-box art of Ace’s adventure, it was nearly impossible to not be enamoured by the stunning artwork.  32 years on there’s still something magical about it – even if it’s 90 per cent nostalgia, 5 per cent artistic merit, and 5 per cent the fact that Borf looks like a Golden Book version of the Genie from Aladdin.  It looked pretty good in motion too, as the scores of people hunched over Amiga 500 demos of the game on loop in department stores across Australia, mouths agape in sheer wonderment, thinking “it’s never going to get better than this”, would probably testify to.