Top 60 Most Wacky Bootleg Boxarts: PS2 Edition

Last week, a new light was shined upon within the videogame community, followed by many faces of bewilderment, amazement, and side-splittting laughter. Coming from African game distributor Syrian Games, the games presented had boxart that can only be described as a drug-filled surrealist trip. Heads of characters photoshopped on the bodies of other characters, overly simple title fonts, and the overabundance of greenery and rainbows for relatively dark games. I mean, I’ve seen bootleg boxart before (namely from fake Famicom games), this but this a whole ‘nother level of zany. There were over 700 games in the PS2 section, and I sifted through all of them. Yes, I’m that serious. As I clicked page after page, I thought that it’d stopped be funny eventually. But it never did, and this is just the PS2 section. Rest assured, I wanted to show many of these and was initially raring to only show 20. But screw that, we’re going for 60!

So after the break, the The Top 60 Most Wacky Bootleg Boxarts: PS2 Edition.

I think the boxarts can speak for themselves, but I’ll still offer my reaction to each of these. Click on each one to view larger image. Now then, in no particular order…

1. Crash Tag Team Racing

Didn’t know Conker was buddies with Crash Bandicoot. Didn’t know there was two Crashes.

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2. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Got the name right. Unfortunately they got the wrong cover.

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3. Trapt

So the maid decided to become Julia. Or maybe… Julia was the maid this whole time!

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4. GUN

A wild west game, now with more snark.

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5. Viewtiful Joe 2

When he’s too busy, Joe gets Hurricane Polymar to cover for him. Hopefully no one noticed.

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6. The Getaway: Black Monday

Like Shaun of the Dead and ZombiU, but with more Chuck. Time to work on you British accent Chuck!

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7. Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War

Aw you bastards done it now! What do you get when you combine a beloved flghter jet game, with one that tried be like the beloved fighter jet game? Complete and utter blasphemy!

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8. Resident Evil: Code Veronica X

~It’s a beautiful day to shoot some heads
~A beautiful day to shoot some heads
~Look at that shirt
~Look, at that shirt

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9. Death By Degrees

It’s okay guys. I tend to confuse Nina and Sarah too. Happens to the best of us.

Wait… that IS Nina! Damn you SyrianGames! You tricked me!

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10. Keiko Yukawa Professional Billiard

At the risk of sounding like a douche, I can tell you with confidence that his name is NOT Keiko Yukawa. And those balls are way to big for those holes.

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11. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

The shop of Prince’s head on Ezio’s body almost distracted me from the outright murder of the game’s subtitle.

On a more ironic note, Assassin’s Creed was going to be another Prince of Persia game before the dev team felt it strayed to far from the setting and time. The more you know.

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12. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

All looks well, until you take a closer look. That’s Ezio’s body.

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13. The King Of Fighters

Hm? Oh I’m sorry, I can’t stop laughing at the absurdity of a Kingdom Hearts character in a fighting game.

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14. Okami

“PET ME MOTHERFUCKER!”

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15. Alaskan Adventures

I’m… pretty sure there are no lions in Alaska.

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16. Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Souless Army

Hee-huh? Wait that’s not Raidou.

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17. .hack//G.U. vol. 1//Rebirth

Yang, meet Fang. Fang, meet Yang. Guys, meet that game you’re not in.

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18. Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2

“I can’t be assed to photoshop in a bunch of characters for a compilation game. So I’ll just use this fighting game cover and call it a day.”

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19. Wild ARMs 5 (aka the Vth Vanguard)

If you thought Wild ARMs 4 was a huge departure for the series, wait ’til you see this. Filgaia has changed indeed.

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20. BloodRayne 2

That’s, uh, disturbing. Almost as disturbing as not noticing the typo in the title the first time around.

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21. Backyard Sports

Didn’t know it got that bad for the Sixers.

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22. Mirror’s Ed — er, Free Running!

Straight and to the point. Screw creative titles!

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23. Captain Majed 2

If you’re gonna make a soccer game cover, at least don’t steal one from the QUALITY department!

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24. Mario Bros. Collection

I guess we can stop laughing at those parents that go into game stores asking if they have Super Mario for the PS2.

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25. Silent Hill 4: The Room

Right game, wrong girl. Or is it right girl, wrong game. Ah who cares, they screwed up.

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26. Max Payne 3

Well, Max Payne and Resonance of Fate do have copious amounts of gun-fu. But Zephyr? Really? Vashyron‘s more mean looking than this twerp!

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27. Gun Club

Psst, don’t tell anyone that that’s Commander Shepard’s head. This is between you and me.

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28. Red Ninja: End of Honor

GAH! JEEZ WHAT THE-! What kind of horrible abomination is this!? You don’t just photoshop a lady’s head on the Ryu Hayabusa’s body all willy-nilly like that!?

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29. The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night

Wrong cover guys! That’s to Dawn of the Dragon!

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30. Tony Hawk’s Underground 2

“Hurry the fuck up and take the picture.”

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31. Stolen

Exactly.

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32. Shadow of the Colossus

Gee, Wander sure prettied himself up. And Agro’s pissed!

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33. 100 Bullets

I guess someone convinced Chris to lay off the steroids. Unfortunately, his head now doesn’t fit his body.

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34. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

Oh my, I wonder where I’ve seen that guy from.

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35. Obscure

And suddenly Mass Effect gets a Zombie DLC featuring Miranda.

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36. Digital Devil Saga

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37. The Punisher

PffffffffHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA, AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA. C’mon guys, there’s lot’s of tougher dudes out there that Leon S. Kennedy.

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38. Soul Calibur II

Asura? Actually, that would be cool.

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39. All The Frickin’ GTA Games They Have

Seriously, these guys love their GTA. The last pages pretty much devolved into GTA. Pictured is GTA: Bruce Lee. I shit you not!

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40. Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home

Looks more like Backyard Prostate Exam if you ask me (no offense Mr. Mysterio)

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41. Project Eden

There’s other sci-fi characters than Commander Shepard guys!

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42. Winning Eleven

So after a game of soccor, the losing team has to going into an all-out Royal Rumble with the WWE Superstars. At least, that’s what I’m understanding from this boxart.

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43. Ghostbusters: The Game

“*sniff sniif* This boxart stinks.”

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44. Justice League Heroes

SyrianGames just committed a great sacrilege to all comic book fans worldwide.

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45. The Warriors

“How’s it hangin’ boppers? We have here dude from another time, another world, another game steppin’ in all over your turf. You gonna just let him dance all over you, or are you gonna crash the party and show him how you jam? Show him a good time boppers.”

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46. Enter The Matrix

Krauser was a different man back then.

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47. Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums

No comment.

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48. Yakuza 2

Looks like Feng Wei became a free agent once his contract with Namco expired.

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49. Shining Force Neo

And you thought SEGA was pissed when they started those takedowns. Wait ’til they see this.

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50. Twisted Metal 2 in 1

Ghost Rider’s head, Kabal’s body, some random action in the background, and a promise of two games in one package. Seems legit.

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51. Persona 4

Looks like the Investigation Team’s packing heat, and those ain’t Evokers.

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52. ICO

Something is amiss when even the bootleg boxart is much better than ICO’s first U.S. boxart, even if it is Ico’s head on the body of someone from Final Fantasy Type-0.

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53. Bloodrayne

I guess they always had problems spelling the title right.

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54. The Bouncer

Volt Kruger‘s never been the same once the army told him to take off his piercings.

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55. Zone of the Enders.

…Bumblebee…

Zone of the Enders…

…Bumblebee…

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56. Hitman 3 Contracts

Leon again, this time with the head of Agent 47 and a donning a cute tattoo.

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57. Bleach: Blade Battlers

Sooo I guess Miguel‘s taking over for Ichigo.

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58. Resident Evil Code Veronica 2

Of all the games iterations you pull Ada Wong from…

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59. Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria

Hey look, it’s the other Sister Complex Kingpin of Steel.

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And last but dear lord not least….

60. Dokapon Kingdom

~Heeeeeey boooooyyyyys.

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Honorable Mentions: Every other PS2 game on that site! Seriously, there’s a lot more where that came from.

I would like to thank both Kotaku and The Gameological Society for bringing these wacky boxarts to light. That was a day I clearly lost to sheer laughter. And it goes without saying, please support the original devs and publishers, otherwise, we might see more of this (as oddball as these are). Do it for the children.

Up next: The PS1 Edition!