Game covers are a fascinating insight into art and trends from when the games were released, and reflect popularities of different styles across the last 30 years. For example for gameshow games such as deal or no deal the art has been replaced by stock photos, reflecting the mass market of the gaming industry.

Of course early game titles showing the in-game graphics were often highly pixelated, classic covers such as that for Sim City 2000 will forever remain in our hearts as one of the best of all time.

More modern covers such as for Fallout 3 express the bleak nature of the game, with its greyscale helmeted figure, but is not unique in its imagery (see Killzone 2 for example)

Some cover art is perfect in it's simplicity, for example the frayed book on the cover of Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls 4) or Gordon Freeman looking out from the cover of Half Life 2.

Possibly the best cover art of all time comes from the Doom series of games - the first of which featuring a hand-drawn image of our protagonist working out his odds of survival like a blackjack player, while battling demonic enemies.