Well, at first I was Netrunner?!?!

Then I was Wait, what?! Netrunner with the Android Theme?!

But then I saw the artwork and it'll keep me off from this game.

:(

oDESGOSTO said:

Aww, you're making it sound like the first edition of Glory to Rome or something. ;-P

Big Head Zach said:

I love that game. So much fun.

Big Head Zach said:

Ba-zing!

Seriously though, Glory to Rome does have some terrible art.  It looks like a bad Phil Foglio imitation.

The new Netrunner though, I think looks pretty good.  Maybe it's just personal taste (apparently there are people that like the Glory to Rome art too), but I don't see the problem.  I would rate it second out of the LCGs on art after Call of Cthulhu based on the few samples we've seen so far.

 Yeah, art is extremely subjective, because I hated, not was indifferent to or disliked, but hated more than 60% of the art from the original game, and upon having started playing some games again about 2 or so years ago that number jumped up to something like 90%. It is just horrid and dated, and kitchy, and contrived. I would probably still buy this game if it was the old art, but I would make fun of FFG at every turn for it.

If something like art is enough to keep an old player away then *waves* so long, farewell, alverdersane, goodbye.

I don't know if it's entirely their fault that 16 year old art based on imagining future technology might seem laughable today.  Even moreso when some of it was computer-generated or made to look so.  I mean, giant pixels?  Blocky looking low polygon objects?  Unusually high numbers of cables on their "advanced" technology?  I can't even get my brother in law to watch Babylon 5 because he thinks the computer graphics look bad and they were quite good for their day (as well as just being an excellent show in general).

Personally I don't see anything bad about the new art, and none of the people who have complained have given specific examples of why they don't like it.  Seems fine to me, but I am glad they chose to update it instead of using the dated looking art from the original cards, even if they were OK at the time they originally were printed.

Big Head Zach said:

yeah, i dont get complaints about the art from fans of the original.  The original had tons of art featuring super generic corporate drones in suits and ties, and tons of primitive CGI computer art that looks extremely dated now.  So there is a new graphic design treatment, and more modern art, and sure, some cards look cooler than others, but thats true of pretty much any expandable card game with lots of art. so…the art is really what is keeping you from being excited? Really?  why in particular?

I'm excited.  I bought a few starter decks off Ebay, and really took to the game, but got really bummed at how expensive it was to build any real constructed decks. Its easy to have fun with starter stuff, but all the real tricksy things seemed to involve lots of rares and I had no interest in trying to build a collection of dead ccg cards.  But a reboot? with easy access to cards and renewed interest so itll be easier to find opponents?  totally in.

                                                                                               ^THIS^

The only thing I note is that compared to other cyberpunk settings, Android feels a little too "clean", not your typical grungy 90's depiction of a future society. This isn't a bad thing though; I mentioned this in another thread, but to me it feels like the New Angeles society are still in their "boom" years. The corporate facade still promises a bright and gleaming future, the artwork looking new, almost sanitized, as a result.

This may be a long reach, but I'd love to see after a long spell or after some significant event that permanently affects New Angles/Heinlein, such as a mass "Human First" uprising or a largescale, bloody corporate war, that we see some of that gritty grime creeping back into the picture and reflecting in the artwork; the tarnished facade fooling none of the jaded masses, caught in the wake of a corporate distopia. 

Treguard said:

Also noticed that when i first saw the artworks, it was brighter, futuristic but not really distopian. Maybe i little dirt can fix it.

 Can't a dystopia look clean, though? I think of films like In Time, or the videogame Mirror's Edge. Both of these are extremely dystopian, while looking whitewashed and gorgeous.

MarthWMaster said:

Certainly, but I guess it's an accepted cliche of the exaggerated social divide between the sparkling upper echelons and  the megarich, and the grim, ugly realities for those on the other end of the spectrum. Those who'd rather stay jacked in than deal with "meatspace". Netrunner had an art style that, naff CG aside, seemed to capture that chaotic streetlife for a runner; a heady cocktail of chips, drugs and shady contacts.  

So maybe the little bit of Android art we've seen has just been centered around the prosperous part of the city?  Those gritty grimy back alleys may still exist in another part of town.

Still, I'm leaning towards the "the sh*t hasn't quite hit the fan yet" explanation.  Their society is still hanging in there for now, just about to start sliding downward into the more typical dsytopian setting.

 Or it could even be that they're trying to subvert the genre by introducing the idea that the Corporations aren't trying to take advantage of anybody, and the Runners are just whiny paranoiacs. 

^_^

MarthWMaster said:

Having played the board game and started on some of the books, they definitely like to have every entity be morally ambiguous, or have a good thing ruined by ambitious people with poor impulse control.

For every Jinteki executive who considers each of Caprice Nisei's "sisters" to be "redundant assets", there is an equally douchey Human First supremacist who sleeps with a sledgehammer under his pillow and waiting for the call to start the Species Holy War.