The Unreal Engine was developed by Epic Games first
demonstrated in the game Unreal in 1998. Unreal Engine 3 is the third
generation of the game engine. It supports for DirectX 11 computers, PS3, Xbox
360, WiiU, PSVita, Android, iOS and Mac OS X. Its renderer supports high dynamic range
rendering, per-pixel lighting and dynamic shadows. Gears of War was the first
console game released that used this engine. This game received an average
score of 94/100 at Metacritic and IGN called it "the most gorgeous looking
game on the Xbox 360”. It also supports games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass
Effect 3, Borderlands and Bulletstorm.
One of the key things with this engine is that Epic released
a free version of it to the general public in 2009 and this was called Unreal
Development Kit. So now anyone can use it to create games and levels. It can
now even create iOS games. It has even been used for non-gaming means, such as
creating simulations for construction and design to film storyboards. It
therefore has a very wide market and has many games from different companies
using it.
Source Engine was developed by Valve Corporation, it
released with Counter-Strike: Source and later Half-Life 2. It supports
Windows, Mac OS X, PS3 and Xbox 360. It has a range of technology advantages,
from Direct3D and OpenGL rendering to high dynamic range rendering. A full list
of its features are here:
It is also extremely popular in the modding community.
Garry’s Mod, although considered a stand alone game that uses the Source
engine, it required users to have at least one other source game and then
allows players to manipulate objects within the physics of the game and create
odd contraptions and chain reactions. It is often used for creating Machinima
movies using assets from other Source games and creating scenes and stories. A famous
one of these is War of the Servers.
Other games that use this engine include the Left 4 Dead
games Zeno Clash and the Portal games.
Also, Valve Software released Source SDK which can be used
to create mods and maps for the Source Engine. It was however criticised for
being outdated and difficult to use.
Unity is a new, up and coming engine. It can be used to
create 3D games and visualisations. Its development environment runs on Windows
and Mac OS X, and the games it creates can be run on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, iPad
and iPhone. It can also run browser games with its plugin Unity Web Player. It
supports games such as Dead Frontier, Battlestar Gallactica Online and Tiger
Woods PGA Tour Online. Unity is great for indie developers, and it offers
different licenses for different consoles. There’s a free version of Unity and
also a Pro version with added features.
CryEngine3 is the third engine from the company Crytek. It
runs on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii
U. Crytek also released a free to use
version of the engine called CryEngine3 SDK, used as a level editor and for
modding purposes. Games that support this engine include all the Crysis games
and Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. One of Crytek’s main games, Crysis had somewhat of
a reputation of requiring serious amounts of power to run on PC. But with the
visually stunning graphics, it still hit home as an amazing game, and engine.
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