Why Sega's Laser Ghost should have been named Quinceañera of the Damned

Those of you who have only been playing games for the last few years may think North American box art has always been on par (or nearly on par) with the art that graces the covers of Japanese releases.

Unfortunately, that's far from the case--a fact that's made painfully clear by looking at the box art that appeared on your average 8-bit, 16-bit and even 32-bit title.

The worst offenders of the above-mentioned bunch: The great majority of the box art produced for Sega's Master System and NEC's TurboGrafx-16.

That's not to say all of the art that appeared on the cases of those systems' games stunk. For instance, Laser Ghost's cover art (right) was pretty darn nice, all things considered.

Strangely, as Back of the Cereal Box's Drew Mackie points out in a recent post, the game's name has little to do with its intriguing cover art--or its content.

What name should the marketing folks at Sega's European arm have given the game instead? Mackie offers up a number of hilarious suggestions in the aforementioned blog post, with my personal favorite being Quinceañera of the Damned.

To see Mackie's other suggestions--as well as footage of both the arcade and Master System versions of Laser Ghost--check out "Laser Ghost! (May Not Contain Ghosts or Lasers)" at your earliest convenience.