I broke down and bought Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. It's what my friends are playing (especially since EA didn't do QA for BF4), and after 145 hours of Skyrim, I'd like to play something else.
(P.S. if, like me, you thought Bethesda games were garbage, Skyrim is really good.)
One of the really cool things companies are doing to get you to buy digital versions is cross-selling the current and last-gen versions. Most of my friends play COD on PS3, so this was especially nice.
I did a cross-gen comparison with Call of Duty: World at War where I played it on the PS3, then played it on the Wii (which was roughly on par with the Xbox in terms of hardware). I didn't post about it here, but here's a short recap:
-The difference in resolution, lighting, and facial detail was pretty jarring.
-There was also a noticeable lack of effects like gloss, shimmer, and reflections.
-That said, Treyarch did a fantastic job with the game on Wii.
Now, I'm playing them sequentially rather than side-by-side for a good reason. Basically, I don't want to focus on differences I wouldn't notice without focus and effort. I'm not mashing my face up against a wall to compare textures or pausing the game to see just how different the muzzle flash is from one game to another. I just want to see how the games "feel" and try to get a good, realistic picture of the subjective, experiential difference between one game and the other when I focus on the game itself. AW is competently executed on both consoles, i.e, it looks pretty good compared to the launch titles on PS4 (certainly better than Ghosts), and it's one of the better-looking PS3 games. I also played the new-gen version first to get a feel for how painful it is to regress. Below are my impressions after playing the first level.
First are the most obvious differences, i.e., the ones I immediately noticed and make the purchase of new hardware feel most justified:
1. The most noticeable, qualitative difference is the gamma. For some reason which I don't entirely understand, Call of Duty tended to have a more washed-out appearance than many PS3 games. This was an issue Treyarch managed to overcome with Black Ops II. But whatever the reason, AW definitely looks grayer and less vibrant.
2. The second most obvious difference is the image quality (resolution/aliasing/texture shimmer). In any case, it is noticeably grainier and more shimmery on the PS3---not as bad as going from the PS3 to the Wii, but still constantly apparent.
3. The third thing is that scenes just seem less detailed overall. I could not exactly put my finger on it while playing. There are probably fewer objects, particles, decals, shadows, dynamic effects, and the like on the PS3, and I'm sure the texture detail plays into that as well.
4. Environment-mapped reflections all look pretty bad on the PS3. Any time there is a reflection on a surface, it looks low quality.
5. Facial animation and detail in the in-engine cutscenes was quite a bit worse on PS3. Robo-Spacey appears to have broken servos in his lip actuators on the PS3.
Second are things I only sometimes noticed:
1. Surprisingly, I did not notice low-quality textures often. Sometimes, a blurry, blocky texture stood out. Most of the time, I didn't notice. While the higher-quality textures overall contributed to the more detailed look of the PS4 version, obviously ugly textures did not stand out very often on the PS3.
2. I occasionally noticed missing effects---places where it would be logical for a flash, a flare, pouring smoke, etc to be. There were a couple moments when the developers showed off some dramatic, cool effect on the PS4 that was obviously not there on the PS3.
3. I sometimes noticed blocky geometry on the PS3. Nothing really looked blocky when I played level on the PS4.
4. I sometimes noticed the quality difference in NPC models because they were closer to my character more often.
Third are things where I genuinely didn't notice any difference---I'm not saying there was no difference, I'm saying I didn't notice whatever difference there may have been when playing the games back to back:
1. Audio quality.
2. Weapon model and texture quality.
3. Enemy model and texture quality.
4. Control responsiveness.
5. Quality of menu/interface screens.
6. Frame rate.
7. Quality of item pickups, HUD, etc.
Overall summary:
While the concept of diminishing returns is hard to quantify, I think reflecting on the subjective experience of going backward from one generation to another makes it more apparent. The short version is that each generation, jumping backward is less and less unpleasant and jarring. For example, all of those things on my last list were big, very noticeable differences between N64 and PS2 cross-gen. Even on my first list, while the quality difference in cutscene faces is obvious, it's not as grotesque as the difference between Solid Snake's face in Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on the Gamecube, or character faces in THPS3 on N64 and PS2. I could say more, but this post is already very long.
(P.S. if, like me, you thought Bethesda games were garbage, Skyrim is really good.)
One of the really cool things companies are doing to get you to buy digital versions is cross-selling the current and last-gen versions. Most of my friends play COD on PS3, so this was especially nice.
I did a cross-gen comparison with Call of Duty: World at War where I played it on the PS3, then played it on the Wii (which was roughly on par with the Xbox in terms of hardware). I didn't post about it here, but here's a short recap:
-The difference in resolution, lighting, and facial detail was pretty jarring.
-There was also a noticeable lack of effects like gloss, shimmer, and reflections.
-That said, Treyarch did a fantastic job with the game on Wii.
Now, I'm playing them sequentially rather than side-by-side for a good reason. Basically, I don't want to focus on differences I wouldn't notice without focus and effort. I'm not mashing my face up against a wall to compare textures or pausing the game to see just how different the muzzle flash is from one game to another. I just want to see how the games "feel" and try to get a good, realistic picture of the subjective, experiential difference between one game and the other when I focus on the game itself. AW is competently executed on both consoles, i.e, it looks pretty good compared to the launch titles on PS4 (certainly better than Ghosts), and it's one of the better-looking PS3 games. I also played the new-gen version first to get a feel for how painful it is to regress. Below are my impressions after playing the first level.
First are the most obvious differences, i.e., the ones I immediately noticed and make the purchase of new hardware feel most justified:
1. The most noticeable, qualitative difference is the gamma. For some reason which I don't entirely understand, Call of Duty tended to have a more washed-out appearance than many PS3 games. This was an issue Treyarch managed to overcome with Black Ops II. But whatever the reason, AW definitely looks grayer and less vibrant.
2. The second most obvious difference is the image quality (resolution/aliasing/texture shimmer). In any case, it is noticeably grainier and more shimmery on the PS3---not as bad as going from the PS3 to the Wii, but still constantly apparent.
3. The third thing is that scenes just seem less detailed overall. I could not exactly put my finger on it while playing. There are probably fewer objects, particles, decals, shadows, dynamic effects, and the like on the PS3, and I'm sure the texture detail plays into that as well.
4. Environment-mapped reflections all look pretty bad on the PS3. Any time there is a reflection on a surface, it looks low quality.
5. Facial animation and detail in the in-engine cutscenes was quite a bit worse on PS3. Robo-Spacey appears to have broken servos in his lip actuators on the PS3.
Second are things I only sometimes noticed:
1. Surprisingly, I did not notice low-quality textures often. Sometimes, a blurry, blocky texture stood out. Most of the time, I didn't notice. While the higher-quality textures overall contributed to the more detailed look of the PS4 version, obviously ugly textures did not stand out very often on the PS3.
2. I occasionally noticed missing effects---places where it would be logical for a flash, a flare, pouring smoke, etc to be. There were a couple moments when the developers showed off some dramatic, cool effect on the PS4 that was obviously not there on the PS3.
3. I sometimes noticed blocky geometry on the PS3. Nothing really looked blocky when I played level on the PS4.
4. I sometimes noticed the quality difference in NPC models because they were closer to my character more often.
Third are things where I genuinely didn't notice any difference---I'm not saying there was no difference, I'm saying I didn't notice whatever difference there may have been when playing the games back to back:
1. Audio quality.
2. Weapon model and texture quality.
3. Enemy model and texture quality.
4. Control responsiveness.
5. Quality of menu/interface screens.
6. Frame rate.
7. Quality of item pickups, HUD, etc.
Overall summary:
While the concept of diminishing returns is hard to quantify, I think reflecting on the subjective experience of going backward from one generation to another makes it more apparent. The short version is that each generation, jumping backward is less and less unpleasant and jarring. For example, all of those things on my last list were big, very noticeable differences between N64 and PS2 cross-gen. Even on my first list, while the quality difference in cutscene faces is obvious, it's not as grotesque as the difference between Solid Snake's face in Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on the Gamecube, or character faces in THPS3 on N64 and PS2. I could say more, but this post is already very long.
