Giant Bomb for the Atari 2600?!

Recently I've been playing my way through the entire Atari 2600 catalog (thanks Jeff!) and I've been having a lot of fun. With the graphics boiled to their purest form, I'm finding just pure awesome mechanics and quite a few times I've had an "Oh that's where that idea/concept came from" moment. If you got the time to play them too, I'd highly recommend it. I'm also a designer, so the visual style and the box art for each of these Atari games is pretty evocative and fun to look at.

Anyways, in my retro / Atari fervor I decided to make some Atari 2600 inspired artwork for Giant Bomb!

I'm working towards a full box art with more text, but this cleaner version seemed ripe for digital wallpapers... and why not share them with the duders?

Asteroids Red:

(hosted on my dropbox, so let me know if any errors occur):

iPhone Sized: 640 x 960, 988kb

iPad Sized: 2048 x 2048, 5.5MB

Desktop (16:9 ratio) : 4.4MB (16:9 Ratio Scales for 11" Macbook Air and All iMacs)

Desktop (16:10 ratio) : 8.3MB (16:10 Ratio Scales for 13" Macbook Air and All Macbook Pros)

Some notes:

- Because trying to hit every pixel size for people's screens is a bit crazy, I made high res wallpapers for different screen ratios. If your screen is a ratio other than 16:9 or 16:10 let me know! The desktop versions are probably bigger than most laptop screens, but the 16:9 & 16:10 ratio should scale to cover all of the display sizes (made by Apple at least).

- Expert retro design duders might notice that I used the Atari title font with the Activision style graphics, and to that I say, YUP. I love that crazy rainbow tail from the Activision covers.

- Also, I'm not sure of the exact copyright vs. fair use when it comes to ape-ing retro style like this (my past experience says this should be fine). But if the GB community would want this on a poster or a shirt and can get in contact with Ryan / whoever gets product on the GB store, I have no problem giving this design to them for use!

9/9/2012 Update! - MORE STUFF

Because I love you all so much (and I was really having fun with it) I finished up the box art, added it to a quick 3d render, and even made some alternate colors for the wallpaper!

Here's the finished box art and the art quickly rendered on a box... albeit a 3D one. (Click to embiggen and see the details!)

And finally, here's the new color options for the wallpaper! I based the hue of red off of the Asteroids' red so I copped some colors from some other classic Atari boxes!

Space Invaders Blue:

iPhone Sized - 960 x 640

iPad Sized - 2048 x 2048

Desktop (16:9 ratio) - (16:9 Ratio Scales for 11" Macbook Air and All iMacs)

Desktop (16:10 ratio) - (16:10 Ratio Scales for 13" Macbook Air and All Macbook Pros)

Pitfall Green:

iPhone Sized - 960 x 640

iPad Sized - 2048 x 2048

Desktop (16:9 ratio) - (16:9 Ratio Scales for 11" Macbook Air and All iMacs)

Desktop (16:10 ratio) - (16:10 Ratio Scales for 13" Macbook Air and All Macbook Pros)

Cool? Thanks again for all the good vibes duders and dudettes, hope you enjoy the retro wallpapers!

Looks really really nice. It looks like something I would love having up on my wall. Keep it up !

Somebody needs to make this happen. Maybe hack that Mega Man Atari 2600 thing to include the duders.

Thanks for the Wallpaper duder!

that's pretty great art.

That's million bucks.

Totally dinosaurs.

Love it!

Totally spies.

They look great!

That's really awesome.

Cool.

Awesome design, thanks for the new wallpaper.

Totally cool beans

I'm glad everyone's liking the wallpapers, and thank you for all the compliments!

@Video_Game_King Ha I was thinking the same thing! For now, I'm making screenshots for the back of the "box" and I'm looking at how actual Atari games drew people so I can draw an accurate 2600 Bombcast crew. I was originally thinking they'd all look like variations on Pitfall Harry (which still wouldn't be too bad) but I've been looking at Kaboom! and Cakewalk in particular, and it appears that there's a fair amount of detail I can work with if I make the guys a little taller and wider.

More to come later, duders and dudettes!

This is too awesome! I'd love a 1920x1080 version.

It's effin' rad.

@tamriilin: No worries, 1920 x 1080 is 16:9 so this one here is for you! :)

nice work duder!

Sleeks.

Rad!

Dude sweet!

And now I have a new wallpaper. Awesome work, man.

Thanks, this is awesome. I've been looking for a new iPhone lock-screen.

I really like it! It's set as my wallpaper at the moment, though I changed the background (left the logo and title) for mine since the kind of salmon-y red made things kind of hard to read on a transparent taskbar.

I remember playing this game. It fucking sucked.

@brandonleedy: Nice work! This is on the front page of the site now.

That's totes gorgeous. Very fetch.

Wow, on the front page! Thank you all for the kind words, I'm glad you're all enjoying it!

@Marino: Thank you for the bump to the front!

@Winsord: Ha I know exactly what you mean, I switched my menu bar to solid cause the transparent pink-ish color looked odd. The whole transparent UI trend is a real catch-22 for designers, I love how cool it looks but if the background's too bright it just washes out. After I finish the whole box art, I'll make a darker blue and green version of the wallpapers.

Is this the one Ryan was saying would be a legal issue if it was the new t shirt?

That Bomb Should Have A Face.

Excellent work. Now go through the ages and do a NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. . .

Thanks for the pic. Using it as a new wallpaper now.

I would pay 14.99 + Shipping and Handling for a poster of this. But not a penny more (unless it was payday).

That's awesome. Nice design!

AWESOME! I'd totally have a poster that looks like that

That is a pretty good job, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the wallpaper! Great work.

Using it on my desktop now, thanks!

Can you make a version for us with 23:9 screens? kthxbai

@scalpel said:

Totally dinosaurs.

nailed it

Really lovin it, although it always seems like there's something missing without the words "DOT COM".

Think you could make a tablet version? It looks fantastic in portrait, but cut off in landscape.

@brandonleedy: Love this. This is now my default wallpaper here at GB.

Nice work.

@brandonleedy Super slick work dude! I love it. Any plans for any other Giant Bomb related art? At first, it reminded me of this:

@alexisg said:

@brandonleedy: Love this. This is now my default wallpaper here at GB.

Same, using it as Nexus 7 wallpaper!

@JukeBoxJosh said:

Think you could make a tablet version? It looks fantastic in portrait, but cut off in landscape.

@brandonleedy If there's a landscape version sitting around I wouldn't mind it myself!

I like it! I'm fond of my current wallpaper but I think I'll try this on!

Looks great brother!

This is amazing. Time to put it in my iPhone, om nom nom.

Hey fellow duders, thanks for all the compliments! As always, I'm glad to see people enjoying the wallpapers!

@cooljammer00: Hmm, not that I know of? I haven't heard from anyone at Giant Bomb about shirts, but I haven't been keeping up on the new shirt conversation. Is it in a thread somewhere?

@Fobwashed: Ha actually after seeing your Mega Man take, I considered it! For this Atari one I've been making the "screenshots" for the back of the box art, but when I move up to the SNES era, would you be cool with me doing the box art for your GiantBomb.EXE game? DUDER COLLABORATION.

@CH3BURASHKA: 23:9? Sure, I can add it shortly... but only because your avatar is Cheburashka and that's dope. KROKODILE? I do need to know what size your screen is because I can't find a 23:9 reference display. Is this a tablet or a massive display panel?

@alexisg: Woo, glad you like it! Awesome to hear it's on a screen in the offices, thanks Alexis!

@MB: Ha I love the parody box art. It is amazing how Atari would inflate the number of "games" in the box. Now people would call B.S. so quick, haha. As for tablets. check out my answer to Josh below, let me know the tablet you're working with.

@JukeBoxJosh: Sure, I can make one for landscape tablets. What size/ratio is your tablet? I still don't have a good grasp on making a tablet wallpaper (like the iPad one). It's always tricky because of the rotation. I think I need to make a big square wallpaper that has space that will intentionally get cropped when rotated. But I only have my iPad to test on so if you're on a different tablet, you'll have to let me know. Have you tried either of the desktop wallpapers on your tablet? If so, what/if anything gets cut off? Thanks for the help!