A favorite obsession is to ponder the differences between Western and Japanese game tastes. Hardcore gaming 101 has published shots of how the boxes of various Western games look in Japan.
I’ll just link straight to Deus Ex: Invisible War, American and Japanese covers:
So this would support the idea that the Japanese are more spiritual & sophisticated. But if you check out the Backyard Wrestling cover, it looks a bit different. Not that Backyard Wrestling is the epitome of taste and sophistication, but still.
(Via Ars Technica.)
I’d say that the Japanese Deus Ex cover was just trying to cash in on imagery popularized by Ghost in the Shell, more than anything else.
I would say that the American cover is trying to advertise the wonderfully fraudulent “war on terror” and perhaps suggest that it will not end for a loooooooooooooooong time….