Cutting every corner is still true when it is done to hold one oarameter i.e. 60fps.
It's subjective. Not talking 30 vs 60, in which case 60 is objectively better. But rather if it's the most important thing of all. You can make the argument that it's a game and 60fps affects gameplay the most and as such it's the most important thing etc etc...we've all seen how this discussion goes.
Point being it's still subjective because if it wasn't then we won't have developers targeting anything else than 60. The fact that there are developers who think otherwise means there are people who won't see 60fps as the most important thing ofnit all.
Black Ops 3 sustains 60FPS nicely in multiplayer and in SP the devs probably wanted to do something more like always. COD has historically always had an unstable framerate in campaign, with the last game being one of the noteable exceptions. The way some people are putting it is as if the game runs in 30s most of the time which is just not true.
Traditionally COD games have run much better than what's on show here, 30fps cutscenes, 30fps push a button on an elevator type scenes, huge sacrifices in rez on XB1, still, worse framerate than any cod game......This release is not a staple of COD campaigns on consoles, that's why people are against it. What's next, a 30fps COD? Do you know that if they go for 30fps, that it would most likely drop to 15fps at this rate, at least they had a good thing going before this release.
Sure they can, you just choose to ignore them.
The dynamic lighting and shadowing in Black Ops 3 is considerably more advanced than AW. The water rendering is also superior in that it can deform. Then there is volumetric lighting all over the place. The particle effects are also much improved and then we have bigger levels with more enemies and more varied enemies most importantly, which on itself might not mean much because it's a COD game but it all adds up. Even the physics is sort of a notch up. There is absolutely nothing that Advanced Warfare does better than Black Ops 3 in terms of tech. And it is capable of doing all that with 4 player coop (which can be CPU intensive), something which AW doesn't have.
The PBR implementation of Black Ops 3 is also superior. Keep in mind Treyarch were one of the first studios in the market that ever tried their hands at PBR and released the product. Black Ops 1 used an early form of PBR if you didn't know.
I can note that the water looks nice. I disagree that particle effects are better. The PP effects, MB etc.. are much better in AW, and that includes cutscenes at 1080p resolution, 60fps which of course makes the game look much better overall too.
AW improved on everything from facial animation to audio, apart from the noticeable improvements to PP effects and better shadows, hence how superior their cutscenes are over BO3 with Kevin Spacey etc...., you could see the focus. There was massive improvements to physics, where particles and such was effected by physics. FYI, AW also used a PBS AND PBL system and had dynamic lighting too. So don't pretend that BO3 is doing something so special that rez+framerate had to tank so much with tearing coupled on account of "effects".
I will also say that persons who just spill out that the last gen consoles held back AW on next gen machines have no idea what they're talking about. The 360/PS3 versions of AW look like last gen versions of COD in comparison to the next gen versions. Sledgehammer concentrated on the PS4/XB1 whilst high moon took the last gen task, all the effort all the advancements are found in the next gen versions.
To get an appreciation of the work they did instead of just spouting some tech terms for a 23fps falling COD, read some of what Jorge Jimenez had to say on AW or you can download the Siggraph Briefing from
here and
here.
I notice that people like to list effects as if they're new or the reason why a game is performing badly. Volumetric lighting is not new, you don't know how expensive this implementation is, do you know how long the first game to debut VL was, it's been a long while. At the end of the day, each COD concentrates on specific graphical features, Ghosts had tessellation and some nifty effects and some nice foliage in parts, Advanced Warfare concentrated on PP effects, had tessellated char models and basically took every thing to a next level as I've explained above, yet all these games with the features they concentrated on "Ghosts and AW" had respectable framerates in lieu of the COD trend. Please read the slides.......
