What Are The Best Game Engines Of This Generation?

Found this interesting article on IGN: The best Game Engines Of This Generation.  I thought I would pose the simple question here. What do you think are the best and why?

On PC I would have to go with CryEngine2/3, given my own experience with the engine. On the console side of things, even though it's not even out yet, I reckon whatever engine Bayonetta is using on 360. I know it's out on PS3 also, but I've only seen footage of the 360 version to my knowledge, and some of that footage has left me truly astonished. The framerate given all the stuff that's happening on screen is insane.

Dragon Age Eclipse Engine on PC deserves an honourary mention too from what I can make out.

CoD4's engine deserves praise simply because of it's quality across the board. It runs well on all formats. I think Infinity Ward found a good balance with that game. I hope that's the case with MW2 also.

Thoughts?

dook nookum.

Source is still a solid engine, and Valve keep updating it as time goes by.

Easily MT Framework.

EDIT:  MT Framework isn't on there?  Wow......

Whatever powered MGS4.

" Source is still a solid engine, and Valve keep updating it as time goes by. "

Naughty Dog's stuff for sure.  Techland's Infinity Engine (or whatever they call it), that powers the Call of Juarez games is really amazing and efficient.  CryEngine 2 is just capable of nice high end stuff, but I have little doubt someone could make a high end engine more efficiently.

But I agree with IGN that Just Cause 2 looks amazing.  IW engine is also great.  UE3 only looks good in Gears 2 and Mirror's Edge so far.  Assassin's Creed 2 might be impressive too.

MT Framework is decent, only really being great when you consider how amazing RE5 looks for the performance, but I think that's largely masterful artwork as opposed to technical prowess.

I noticed with upgrading my computer in regards to Source engine, the engine really isn't that great.  My old computer would choke on newer Source engine games (Half Life 2 ran fine, but the upgrades weren't so great), Source engine games don't perform great on consoles.  Basically somewhere there's a line in performance where you go from 'works bad' to 'works great', not a gradual curve.

I'm really worried about Dragon Age's engine.  I have a feeling that it might be one horrible engine.  With the performance of stuff like NWN2 when it came out, and how they're recommending Quad for DA, and how ugly the game looks in screens and videos.

I really hope that no one tries to say "UNREAL ENGINE 3".  Such a poorly optimized engine with a very bad reputation.

I like the Gamebryo Engine, so I'll go with that.

RAGE, EGO, Deferred Rendering, Naughty Dog, Forza Motorsport and of course cryENGINE 3 all never cease to amaze me, when I see them at work on their respective titles.

" Naughty Dog's stuff for sure.  Techland's Infinity Engine (or whatever they call it), that powers the Call of Juarez games is really amazing and efficient.  CryEngine 2 is just capable of nice high end stuff, but I have little doubt someone could make a high end engine more efficiently.But I agree with IGN that Just Cause 2 looks amazing.  IW engine is also great.  UE3 only looks good in Gears 2 and Mirror's Edge so far.  Assassin's Creed 2 might be impressive too.MT Framework is decent, only really being great when you consider how amazing RE5 looks for the performance, but I think that's largely masterful artwork as opposed to technical prowess.I noticed with upgrading my computer in regards to Source engine, the engine really isn't that great.  My old computer would choke on newer Source engine games (Half Life 2 ran fine, but the upgrades weren't so great), Source engine games don't perform great on consoles.  Basically somewhere there's a line in performance where you go from 'works bad' to 'works great', not a gradual curve.I'm really worried about Dragon Age's engine.  I have a feeling that it might be one horrible engine.  With the performance of stuff like NWN2 when it came out, and how they're recommending Quad for DA, and how ugly the game looks in screens and videos. "

" I really hope that no one tries to say "UNREAL ENGINE 3".  Such a poorly optimized engine with a very bad reputation.

Personally, I don't give a shit what engine something is running on, as long as the game works well with it and a great game is made because of it.

"

I dont think FF13 actually runs on UE3. I'm pretty sure its crystal tools engine. 

Yeah, Cliffy B did a great job on the advertising/whoring the engine. I remember that golf game demo.

MidWay certainly fucked up big time with those games. That trio of games got worse with each game. I got Strangle, as a massive fan of John Woo and Hong Kong cinema. Man, it's a shame they used that engine, and that the game was made then, now, using new technology in animation like procedural motion warping, a game like that could play much better. The game was OOT, way too much, it had issues. and I was disappointed.

I actually thought the UT3 engine was great myself, but perhaps it wasn't for the community of modders, and I guess that's all important for that game. It's alright now though I hear.

Why do people always say source? Valve games don't even look that great... And in a kinda double whammy nerd rage inducing sentence i pick unreal enngine 3.

Unreal 2 engine is the best engine ever made. They should still be using it.

" Why do people always say source? Valve games don't even look that great... And in a kinda double whammy nerd rage inducing sentence i pick unreal enngine 3. "

" @Linkyshinks: I wouldn't say that the Source engine is becoming more demanding based on one factor: It's growing relative to the technology of the userbase. Valve is constantly doing surveys to find out what sort of rigs people own and they modify the Source engine accordingly, trying their hardest not to alienate a majority of users. I can still run Episode 2 on decent settings on my crappy 6 year old HP. On my new machine (q6600, 4gig ram, 8800gt, Vista [!] not exactly the greatest pc) I can run every Source powered games on max settings at 1920x1440. I would say that the Source engine is still just about the most optimized engine for the performance it gives. "

Has everyone forgotten about the Frostbite Engine, omg it is beautiful. I personally didn't like the Red Faction engine cause it felt like I was playing one of the Lego games just with paper walls. The Frostbite Engine was beautiful and the newer version is coming out on the new Battlefield Bad Company and I can't wait to see it!

" Has everyone forgotten about the Frostbite Engine, omg it is beautiful. I personally didn't like the Red Faction engine cause it felt like I was playing one of the Lego games just with paper walls. The Frostbite Engine was beautiful and the newer version is coming out on the new Battlefield Bad Company and I can't wait to see it! "

I think that the Frostbite Engine is spectacular.

" @crunchUK said:

" Why do people always say source? Valve games don't even look that great... And in a kinda double whammy nerd rage inducing sentence i pick unreal enngine 3. "

I would say that the Source engine is amazing because:1: Good graphics without a major hit to performance.2: Probably one of the most mod-able engines.3: It has a lot of unlockable potential. The team that made the Fake Factory mod know this first hand. Also, Black Mesa Source is taking advantage of some upgraded graphics. "

Yeah because anybody has even heard of anything other than Source, Unreal 3, Cryengine and possibly, possibly the White engine or Frostbite, or some of the DS game engines, but only because they've been in the news recently nobody here actually knows shit all about them.

There are TONS and TONS of game engines, and software that can be combined to make games, but all this thread is gonna do is get posts about the same 3 western engines over and over "Source", "Nah source looks like shit YO", "Unreal", "Nah texture pop YO", "Cryengine", "Nah, all it does are islands dood"

Honestly, if you can reduce the texture pop significantly, as some devs have managed to achieve, Unreal 3 is one of the best, but my personal props have to go to Torque 3D and torque 2D for being such high quality compared to being so damned cheap,, literally couple hundred bucks for a license, I use them they are great.

Although that said, maybe some of the Criware stuff, I mean I don't know a whole lot about it as it's Japanese and info is scarce as to exactly what it all is, from what I can gather they have a couple of different game engines, some physics software, some sound software etc and you license them seperately and mash them togetherr. Either way, those guys middleware is being use in everything from Okami, to Crysis (no kidding) to JRPGs and Street Fighter IV.
 
And for the record, Source would be the most easily moddable engine around without Steam fucking things up, otherwise that award has to go to Unreal imo.

Edit: I do also agree with LinkyShinks, whatever they are calling the CoD4 engine, that shit needs to be spread around man it's spectacular, smooth, no texture pop, looks great. Given it's in-house with almost no intention of licensing out (I believe it was used on Quantum of Solace though) it's probably an absolute pig to develop for.

Perhaps Modern Warfare 2 (MW4.0), might see it used more frequently by other developers. I think the problem is the engine seems very geared to FPS's, and because that, Infinity Ward may not wish to create competition for themselves in the genre.

The Uncharted engine is pretty amazing.

SOURCE, and whatever engine Red Faction plays on. Red faction is just impressive haha. All the destruction and shit is insane if you think about it.