So let's start with image quality. The 360 puts on a very impressive show despite Black Ops 2 running at just 880x720 native resolution. The 2x MSAA in combination with an impressive upscaling filter does wonders with the process of clearing sharp edges on the cut-down horizontal axis, and the very worst aliasing we see is on 2D elements, such as blocky-looking foliage that can crop up in the earlier levels. By comparison to the PC version running at a native 1280x720 with 4x MSAA, we see only a very slight softness to the image on Microsoft's box - the decision to go with this setup is undoubtedly an improvement over Modern Warfare 3, which scaled both axes to a murkier effect.
There's clearly something amiss on the PS3 side though, and the cause is twofold: resolution and Treyarch's choice of anti-aliasing method. We find the game hitting the same 880x720 figures enjoyed on 360 in places, but this isn't a constant throughout the game. Rather, it appears to be more dynamic than first thought, where several tests of the first level's river scene gives us a reading as low as 832x624. Scaling these resolutions typically produces more pixel crawl on PS3 as a result, and looks a world away from the sharpness what we're seeing on 360, which remains locked at its own resolution.