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The Best Game Engines

Posted by Soulskill on from the quake-me dept.

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."

10 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    they had done the same with F/OSS and/or Cross platform game engines, the article would have been significantly more interesting...
    Most of the big commercial engines are pretty useless to those without a budget, or with a desire to target their favorite OS...

    1. Re:If only... by msormune · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Many people who are skilled in graphics creation etc. do NOT have the open source mentality: They are not "geeks" who feel pride in taking part in such projects.

      Wouldn't it be a good idea to create a "open source graphics, sound and design" project in which people could contribute various objects needed in game design and graphics? Kind of like a 3D engine, but for graphics etc. only. But then there any such projects?

    2. Re:If only... by icebraining · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's strange, 'cause there's a big modding community which provides tons of "full replacement" mods, with textures and 3D models, and there are many open source 3D engines. I think the problem is the lack of "middle" code, to provide a way to make a "mod" to the OS engine as easily as for most commercial games.

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  2. And Valve is no where? by i_ate_god · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Source engine is a great engine and the results frankly impress me a lot more than Unreal engine. Bioshock was an incredible game, but the look and feel of HL2 and it's subsequent episodes/tech demos were far more impressive visually.

    Not only that, but the Source engine is painfully easy to mod and is supported by a company that goes out of its way to encourage third party developers to use it.

    Frankly I'm disappointed that Source was not mentioned here.

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    1. Re:And Valve is no where? by brkello · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wow, that was a really long post to show you don't know the difference between artistic style and the underlying engine.

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    2. Re:And Valve is no where? by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You complain about HL2 being brown and grey and then praise the aesthetics of Gears? You do realise that Gears is the ultimate in brown-and-grey technology? Right?

  3. Re:Asheron's Call by Canazza · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Imo, PvP is considered Content, and has nothing to do with the engine.

    A Game engine focuses on things like the underlying game mechanics (movement, physics etc), graphics rendering (Including, but not limited to Shader language, Character animation system, the basic UI handlers and texture engine) network handling and whatever scripting language is used to create content.

    Things that come under "Content" are all the things that are put on top of an engine to make a game. IE Combat, interacting with NPCs, Menu systems, Inventory systems, weapons. Most of which is done through whatever scripting language the engine uses (In the case of Unreal it's the UnrealED application and it's scripting language. In the case of Source, it's a mixture of many things, mainly Map-based Entities created through Hammer and C#/C++ if you're changing game mechanics)

    Having never played Asherons Call, I can't comment on the gameplay, but a good movement system on it's own does not make a good PvP system.

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  4. Re:Asheron's Call by FTWinston · · Score: 2, Insightful

    C#

    Being able to mod source in C# would be the best drug ever.

  5. Havok anyone? by wordisms · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_(software)

    I think this list covers it: http://www.havok.com/content/blogcategory/29/73/

    1. Re:Havok anyone? by hellfish006 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Havok is just a physics engine that is added to other game engines. The Source engine uses a heavily modified Havoks physics engine. Even the Wii runs the Havoks physics engine in some of its top tier games. The same reason Havok was not included is the same reason Natural Motion was not.