The first game must have the worst frame-rate that I've seen in a high profile game this gen (along with Crysis 2) on the consoles, completely and utterly embarrassing performance.
Sure the PS3 version was smoother than the 360 but I doubt that we'll see a steady 30fps even in the PS3 version of LoS2 unless they did some major improvements on the engine...my guess is that they'll push the visuals even more and keep the frame-rate at LoS1 levels - I'd love to be proven wrong though.
The problem was two fold with the original game.
Yes, the framerate was low and unstable (still higher than the framerate in, say, Ocarina of Time on the N64...but that's not really a good comparison), but it was the animation that made it seem much worse. In particular, I'm talking about the running and jumping animations. The character simply didn't connect well with the ground and jumps felt floaty. I have found that, in games with a low framerate, nailing the animation can actually save the day.
If they had designed more "weighty" animation and locked down the framerate things would have been much better.
By locking down I mean limit to 30 fps max. They allowed the game to jump around wildly and it spent quite a lot of time ABOVE 30 fps (usually around 33 fps) which adds severe judder to the image. It even managed to spike up to 60 at points. The fact that it could jump from a juddery 33 fps to 22 fps just by running forward made it FEEL much worse. You just couldn't count on the framerate and even when it WAS fast enough, it hit uneven numbers for a 60 Hz display.
The 360 version also lacked triple buffering, which helps avoid some of those crazy framerate numbers, but actually results in larger dips. If it couldn't hold 30, it would drop ALL the way to 20 fps. If it couldn't hold 20 it would drop to 15 fps and so on. It was more consistent, but generally much lower.
The best option would have been to stick with triple buffering but prevent the framerate from jumping above 30 fps while delivering better animation and control for navigation.
Still, I think it runs better than Saints Row The Third overall, which wasn't knocked for performance nearly as hard.
I would expect similiar sub 20fps but a better looking game for the consoles.
As I've noted above, the game actually spent most of its time at 20 fps or slightly above (PS3 generally hits around 24-25 fps). It's simply highly unstable and jumps around constantly. There were very few scenes that actually dropped below 20 fps.
In the last generation, PC gamers could play only few zelda/metroidvaina games [batman games, and now darksiders 2].
Well, Lords of Shadow was really nothing like those games. It was completely linear and focused on going from level to level.