Metal Morph cover (1994) 🔗

Another cover that borrows several of Frazetta’s fall guys from various black-and-white drawings. The origin of the bald hero in the center is still unknown, looks more like a movie still to me.

Discovered by corsair from the Hardcore Gaming 101 forums.

Ashura cover (1986) 🔗

While this game was released in the US as an actual Rambo game, the same isn't true for this Japanese version, so this is absolutely an illegitimate use of Stallone's likeness. I'm almost convinced the left guy isn't taken from the same movie (which is odd, given how deliberately the game borrowed from it), or it might have been a really obscure still only found in some contemporary Japanese magazine.

Mercs (1991) 🔗

Even though Capcom's game Commando predates the movie Commando, perhaps they got cold feet about similarities when coming up with the English title for the seque, but that still didn't prevent them from ripping off the Schwarzenegger vehicle in the game. Another character's portrait pose was taken from Raw Deal – not the most celebrated of Arnie's action movies, but it seems to have gained some popularity in Japan (where it was known as Gorilla), at least judging by the number of games riffing on the film's poster. The third guy in the game obviously has the Schwarzenegger physique as well, but I haven't found a matching pose yet. The item merchant that's only found in the Sega Genesis version also looks like she's based on something real.

Double Hawk cover (1990) 🔗

Sure, the two muscle men on Sega's shooting gallery are made to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, but there's a kind of reverse Gryzor situation going on: At least both torsos are clearly both taken from the latter's Rambo poses, as you can clearly make out on the muscle definitions and even the scars on his chest. The big faces on top are a bit of a guessing game and they might be from different or a mix of references. I'd wager on the soldiers and war machinery in the foreground also being lifted from somewhere else, but those are a bit harder to find and identify.

Navy Seals (1991) 🔗

One of the things British micro shovelware publisher Ocean specialized in was movie licenses (they might be a major contributor to the bad reputation of games based on movies in earlier years), another was copying stuff. The cover simply recreates the variant of the Navy Seals logo from the film, but at least for one of the still images in between stages they went to one of their favorite sources, namely Marvel's The Punisher. The whole composition with the hero hanging on front of the window is swiped directly from Mike Zeck's cover, except the crime going on inside is a different one. There are several other human poses in these intermissions that might or might not also have famous sources.

Discovered by kjn from the Hardcore Gaming 101 forums.

Freedom Force cover (1988) 🔗

When I first saw this cover, I thought it was a reference to Natural Born Killers, until I checked and (re)discovered that it predates that movie by more than half a decade. Of all the game covers that borrow Clint Eastwood's iconic Dirty Harry pose, this is the only one where the gun is almost as big as the original. The head, on the other hand, comes from a different source this time. His features are a bit distorted, but it's still identifiable as Rutger Hauer on a publicity photo from the set of Blade Runner. (Thanks to downchasm and Disc B on Bluesky for the tip on Rutger Hauer.) His lady friend remains a mystery for now.

Sherwood cover (1993) 🔗

This Slovakian-made Robin Hood game sure tries to cover all the Robin Hoods. Besides Kevin Costner on the title screen, the cover adds Patrick Bergin's interpretation from the British production that amazingly came out the same year as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and even reaches all the way back to 1938 to bring Errol Flynn from The Adventures of Robin Hood back from the dead. The smaller scenes at the bottom are a bit harder to determine, but the Sherriff of Nottingham in the sword scene clearly shows features of Alan Rickman's portraial of the villain. The (presumably) Maid Marian is unidentified so far, but she definitely isn't from any of these films.

Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan cover (1990) 🔗

Crusaders of Khazan was not only the sole CRPG adaption of the Tunnels & Trolls role-playing game in it's time, but also a rare collaboration between US-based New World Computing and the Japanese CRPG publisher StarCraft. The cover was painted by Akira Komeda, who in his early career seems to have had a bit of a tendency to get overly inspired by famous artists. The cover for Crusaders of Khazan is a proper who's who of fantasy illustrators: A dwarf by Clyde Caldwell, a warrior by Michael Whelan, a kneeling rogue by Frank Frazetta (admittedly this one might come partially or wholly from another source), and I'm sure in time something will turn up for the wizard as well as the towering sorceress they're all facing.

Zed Blade character portraits (1994) 🔗

For the promotional flyer publisher SNK graced NMK's Zed Blade (aka Operation Ragnarok) with original art by Shinkiro, but for the in-game portraits of the characters they had to gey by using other means, namely scraping them from famous movie stills. Zed Blade's Uncle Beard matches up near perfectly with a somewhat rare photo from the production of 1978's Deer Hunter (except for the animal on his shoulder), while Corporal Swift Arnold is a very obvious stand-in for Maverick from Top Gun. (The actual photo used might be a more obscure variant than the one in the comparison, but even the partially visible patch on his uniform seems to read 'TOPGUN'.) Only Sergeant Ms. Charlotte is currently unidentified.
Credits: The Deer Hunter reference was identified by downchasm on Bluesky.