Then again, I never really thought of AI War being a game so much about the art, and never really looked at it as having the "AI War" look if that makes any sense. You spend most of your time not really seeing any of the art, after all.
Some say AI War doesn't have good graphics.. I think I've even heard they're "pretty bad to be honest".
I really like the art style of AI War.. the ships, buildings, shots/ammo and explosions all look good even though they're simple. The art style is modest and simple and gets the job done.
And "not seeing the art" because of being always zoomed out isn't exactly true. I actually end up zooming close enough to see the art quite often especially if I micro. Hell sometimes I just like to take a couple of seconds to look at that Data Center, Superterminal or Super Fortress because they look cool. I like the art style.
Oh no, it's not as if I'm calling the game ugly. I actually love to zoom in and see, say, little details like the appearance change between each mark of ship. But, the game seems to be rather hard to play when you aren't in far zoom. Far zoom gives you a whole lot of information that you can use to make reasonable decisions, and in regular gameplay that's what I"m doing. Likewise, in 'regular gameplay' I'm probably not going to give that title screen more than a second glance. Why? Because I'm much, much more interested in playing the game. There's just something about the way it's set up. If I want to look at the art, I have to set aside a moment to get in a close enough zoom as to make the art look good. It's almost like I internally flip game mode between 'crush the AI' mode and 'look at pretty stuff' mode. And, well, in doing that, I don't remember whether everything's consistent with the title screen or not.
Besides, some older assets almost look like pixelart you'd see in an SNES style RPG, and other art looks like stuff you'd find in, say, A Valley Without Wind. I'm actually a big fan of the energy collector's art because it looks like somebody built a huge power plant on the world map of FF6. Next to the command station though? It looks a tiny bit out of place. Again, that's not to say that the sprites don't look good... although I really do want to question some of the guard posts and guardians because of how bizarre they look.
I dunno, I just don't care about the gameplay when I'm looking at the art, or about the art when I'm dealing with gameplay. And, the way that the game works, the gameplay is actually really really good, so the title screen doesn't bother me in that way. It's actually really cool, because no matter how the art looks, you'll always be able to play the game equally as efficiently as pro Starcraft players on minimum settings.
Edit: I guess really I'm only comparing the home command station with anything else.
