He showed up to a gun fight with a novelty cigarette lighter, which instantly tells players he's a psycho or he's got a spectacular sense of humor when it comes to mass slaughter. Replace the gun with a red balloon and he's the sad kid at the carnival whose parents won't let him ride the roller coaster.

When the badass heroes weren't obviously shooting their guns because they were straining themselves trying to look so casually cool, they were misfiring because they were paying more attention to the camera than to precaution.

Cyborg ninjas or ginger soldiers -- no one is immune to the alluring presence of a photographer. Not even a guy being attacked by dogs:

I honestly believe this image was Photoshopped and that gun was originally a meatball sub, which explains why the dogs were attacking.

None of these people have any sort of regard for gun safety. They walk around and strike poses with their fingers firmly mashed on the trigger like the gun version of Speed. Let up for even a second, and it's over. Though, now that I think about it, a Speed-like gun bomb would make a pretty damn cool game.

It's a classic visual trope in adventure stories. The square-jawed hero stands triumphantly as he holds the damsel in distress close, protecting her from foes. Early video game covers adopted the trope, and most of them kind of, sort of looked like sexual molestation. Not always. Sometimes it's pedophiley, like when an old-timey guy steals a little girl:

But other times, like on the cover of Double Dragon II, there's a vague savagery to it ...

Meh. Probably nothing. Surely, we'll move on from this weird trend that seems to be getting exponentially rapier as it goes along.

Or not. That mutant-freak-pig-human-monster has one hand in that lady's butthole, the other is trying to steal her spine, and she's juuuust beginning to realize both of those things.

Hey, look at that, it gets worse. Who holds a woman that way? He has her kidneys in a headlock. That's not a rescue, that's how you hold a person before you feed them to a dragon. If that's Sinbad, our hero, and everyone else is a bad guy, why does the bad guy up front look like he just walked in on a murder? You mean there's something worse happening off camera? Sinbad seems like a real asshole. And the covers get worse:

I'm assuming the title is describing the emotional state of the ass on Zapp Brannigan's shoulder. Based solely on how he's holding her like he's looking for a dark cave to defile her in, I'm guessing the shifty Asian guy, the monsters, and the three hearts in their classic kindergarten cutout shape but with all the detail of real hearts are all trying to save the girl from becoming this space Aryan's sex toy/next meal. Whenever she complains he probably finds it incredible that a rectum can talk.

Or even between walls:

Characters would hurdle off of the beach:

Onto a building:

Off the building:

And then, finally, hurdle themselves into space:

Where they could finally escape the cold grip of gravity, forever hovering in a blissful state of perpetual hurdle.

"Imagine this one, Arnie: you and another you seek to avenge the theft of your shirts." By the way, muscle guy No. 1 also belongs in the first entry because neither he nor his sweaty friend is aware he's shooting dirt.

"Can't you see it now, Arnold? You and a black version of you, back-to-back: Twins Two: Total Carnage!"

"Arnie, you'll play a thin, wispy wizard whose chest is slowly transforming into a craggy mountainside!"

"You'll play a mangled mash of sausages as they're passed through a waterfall of doughnut glaze":

These aren't men. These are stacks of Philly cheesesteak meat LARPing.

They also came in varying degrees of damage. There was "I Made Him Fly With My Hands":

Or this one, where the puncher is entirely unaware that his attempt to grab a fly killed a gimp:

Then there's the "Feet Can Punch Faces Too!" genre, wherein we are reminded that the feet are the fists of the legs.

And finally, there's the "Oh My God! I ... I think I Killed Him! Oh, God ... That Wasn't Supposed to Happen! Dude, I Think He's Fucking Dead!" genre:

What better way to promote the wholesome family fun of early video games than with hands exploding faces.