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The Best Game Engines
SlappingOysters writes "IGN has taken a look at the most impressive middleware solutions for the next generation of gaming, giving a detailed analysis of which engines are performing the best and which have the most exciting futures. It runs through the technical strengths of each engine, as well as how that translates into actual gameplay. It also runs through which software has and will be using each engine."
Or it might not.
I get your point that using a 3rd party engine would seem to limit your creativity: you wouldn't want to use an engine designed for a FPS to write Battleship Frisbee Cookoff Challenge.
However, if you're intending to create a game that's even remotely within a common genre, then using a 3rd party engine frees you up to concentrate on producing a unique experience. You can blow 20 man years just to catch up with the last generation of Quake, or you can start with a working, tested engine and concentrate your resources on adding just the new functionality and tools that you need.
Why, yes, I'm speaking from experience (of doing it the wrong way). Thanks for asking!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's not every day I come across a perfectly good excuse to toot my own horn. Here is my list of free game engines: http://www.freegameengines.org/ My definition of "game engine" is a bit stricter than most. I believe Wikipedia has a similar list.
Drivel like this article is why I quit Slashdot. You can quit too! with only occasional relapses.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
It takes a lot more than the engine to create a succesful game with 3D graphics. You need the story, and graphics (duh), overall design a a lot more. That's the problem with open source: It's pretty damn hard to find people to contribute to those. So you need the money anyway, not just for the engine.
Personally, I think Insurgency lives up to the standards of a commercial game... it has good graphics, plays very well, and often crashed until it was patched!
What game released in the last 3 years hasn't had all three of those attributes (especially the third!)?
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