Just deal with it. Even though I don't like the game I can admit it. 

Wasnt the original post saying that SoTC was ONE of the best looking 6th gen games? If so then bringing up Riddick was irrelevent in the first place.

The issue with Espresso, is that paired singles is something completely different than any other forms of SIMD (it's not even "real" SIMD), and porting heavy FP code from a 128-bit SIMD unit to a 32-bit x 2 Paired Singles isn't an easy operation. It's not like it can't do it, it just won't do it in the same way, nor at the same amount. And the fact that there's only 3 cores is a limiting factor. The amount of stuff it can do is limited, but it's no way a terrible architecture at all. It running several modern games using 32-bit x 2 paired singles is impressive. It's surprising that it was able to do that well in the matmul SIMD tests, something it shouldn't be able to do amazingly.

That core surprises people like this:

http://www.radgametools.com/bnkhist.htm

• Added Wii-U support for Bink 2 - play 30 Hz 1080p or 60 Hz 720p video! We didn't think this would be possible - the little non-SIMD CPU that could!

Something like Espresso, can decode Bink 2 @ 1080p/30 or 720p/60, which is a pure SIMD instruction, even though Espresso doesn't even have real SIMD. I'm pretty sure a more modern CPU with proper SIMD instructions would be able to do this normally, but Espresso being able to do it AT ALL is surprising. Who knows what sorts of things this thing would be able to do in the future.

No, 32-bit x 2 paired singles is not as good as having a true 128-bit SIMD, but that doesn't mean we won't be seeing amazing physics, just not at the same levels as PS4/X1. But calling it "weak" or "terrible" is an understatement. With respect to multi-hundred dollar CPUs, yes, it's a joke, all 8th generation console CPUs  are terribly under-powered compared to even some lower-end CPUs on the market, and that's a shame. Core-for-core, Jaguar isn't going to do stuff that Espresso couldn't handle one way or another (it could do it, just not at the same level), and that won't make downports from next gen impossible, just difficult. Much better than trying to port from Xenon to Broadway though! 

Anyway, Shin'en had better show something good for their next game, because talking "big" like that just has to be supported by actually doing something nice. Nano Assault looks okay, and it's cool that it runs with only the main CPU core, but it's not gonna impress many people. They had better use Tessellation well in their next game, not just for small things. 

Shin'en do have some mad skills but I don't know if Nano Assault Neo is technically their best effort.  While I agree it has some pretty nifty effects going on and is one of the cleanest looking 720p games around, it doesn't have any great amount of geometry being thrown around at any one time.  It's hard to know if this is simply because this particular game didn't call for it or system limitations.  I'd tend to opt for the former but it still makes it hard to profer the game as a technical showcase.

Jett Rocket on the other hand was just a staggering achievement in 40mb, there really were only a couple of games on the Wii that looked better and because of this I look forward to see what Shin'en can do next.  I really think Nintendo could put these guys to work as engine developers, partnered with some of Nintendo's own developers on games like F-Zero, I think they could do wonders.  Given what we've already seen they can do imagine what they could do with a bit of a budget.

Bulldozer/Vishera's IPC is actually lower than the Phenom 2's. Both Stars and Bulldozer are slower in terms of IPC than the Core 2 series, which puts performance into perspective, of course the Phenom 2 will switch into another gear when you pump up the NB clock by roughly 33%, which can yield upwards of 15-20% in IPC increases.

Jaguar has more in common with Brazos than Bulldozer anyway if anything Brazos was an evolutionary/reworking of the K10h architecture.
When comparing Jaguar to Brazos, it's the same 2-wide, L1 cache with the same execution blocks as Brazos it's an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary one, which is standard with PC processors.
AMD went about improving performance by throwing in a loop buffer, improving the cache predicter, improved instruction buffer and providing more instructions than you can poke a stick at.

One take away from it all is that, Brazos had a very poor floating point unit, AMD fixed that with Jaguar by doubling up on essentially all of the FP execution blocks, however what most people don't realise is that, game engines don't only use Floating Point math and CPU's don't just deal with Floating Point, so using FP numbers a way to determine a CPU's performance is completely and utterly pointless.

We don't have the polygon numbers for any of Bayo 2's characters yet.

Oh I agree completely that Jett Rocket is a much more impressive technical feat, the level of graphics it pushes on Wii while running at 60fps and fitting into 40MB is astounding.

Nano Assault's geometric simplicity is essentially the result of its gameplay design; its based around relatively small worlds with basic shapes. The impressive parts are the effects, the fact its an 82MB launch title made by 5 people, 60fps on two screens, and the fact that according to Shin'en the shaders are all unoptimized yet still look as nice as they do at the aforementioned high framerate.

But we know Kratos is still better looking than any Bayo's characters so far. Maybe if SSM (or similar talented studio) was working on WiiU, we'd have a better looking game

Until we know the poly count on Bayo 2's characters, though, we can't be certain that Kratos is higher poly.

As for Sony Santa Monica, there are few devs on the planet as skilled at graphics as them, and Platinum is not one of them. That said, I find Platinum's games more fun than SSM's. I like my action games batshit insane. :)

I agree when it comes to sheer action gameplay. Metal Gear rising was a much better hack n  slash game than any GOW, but it loses badly in pretty much all other aspects