Topic: Best 10 Game Engines of this generation [IGN] (Read 14949 times)

est · « **on:** 16 Jul 2009, 05:31 »

http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/100/1003725p1.html

Please note the absence of the GameBryo engine.

My comments:

1. RAGE engine - I am pretty impressed by the graphics in Red Dead Revolver. I would count them as better than the graphics in GTA IV even though it uses the same engine.

2. CryEngine - Yeah ok well, it's the thing that runs Crysis, so no surprise that it looks good. I have heard that in Crysis Warhead they got it looking good and running pretty well, so it's good that this kind of quality can be delivered in a more readily-enjoyable package.

3. The Naughty Dog engine - This one is a bit of a surprise for me, because I hadn't really been looking at the Uncharted series. I would rank it as looking ok, but in some of the action scenes it looks a lot better.

4. The Dead engine - This was not a very good trailer to show off the engine. I couldn't really see much. I have seen some of Deadspace though and really liked what I saw there.

5. Unreal engine - If you have seen my previous comments about the Unreal engine you might be surprised by me saying that it actually looks kind of ok in Gears of War 2. Normally Unreal games look shiny and horrible (Bioshock especially was a shiny piece of shit) but somehow (perhaps the sunlight?) the clips I saw from GoW2 looked alright by comparison.

6. Avalanche engine - This engine, even in the original Just Cause was a really gorgeous engine that could handle wide open spaces very very well. Its main failing in my opinion is the lack of detail in character models. If they found a way to bump the detail up on models when you were close to them, then turn it back down when you're in action mode it would be far more impressive than it already is.

7. IW engine - I honestly hadn't seen this one before due to not playing the kind of games that use it. It looks ok I guess? I dunno. I would definitely get a better feel for it if I played a game that used it, but even though it was kind of technically good it felt bland. The lighting wasn't used very well in the clip they linked to, so everything seemed pretty generic.

8. Anvil Engine - I can see why people laud Assassin's Creed as being a beautiful game. The engine at least looks pretty cool in the Assassin's Creed 2 clip they show here.

9. EGO engine - It's a car racing engine. Whatever, right? Yeah but it looks pretty good. One thing that car games have got to do right is physics and landscapes, and this engine looks to do landscapes at least rather well.

10. Geo-mod engine - The graphics in this clip are pretty boring. The physics are a step forward I guess, but the explosions/demolitions look like a lego building being blown up. They're not natural. It blows into little pre-defined regular pieces instead of being randomly blown to fucking shit. A for effort, but the execution sucks.

MrBlu · « **Reply #1 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 06:27 »

In terms of Crysis, the first one was horribly (read: barely) optimized, so they decided to fix that in Warhead. Which is why people don't use Crysis 1 for benchmarks anymore.

And I love COD4, so I love IW engine. I just love everything about it.

Ã¶de · « **Reply #2 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 08:56 »

The IW Engine is basically perfect for CoD4, or CoD4 is perfect for the IW engine.

Boro_Bandito · « **Reply #3 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 11:14 »

Wow, didn't realize how good the facial animation was in uncharted, that looks pretty damn good.

KvP · « **Reply #4 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 11:44 »

Uncharted had really excellent animation in general. It's become something of a standard.

I actually really liked Source as it was optimized in Ep 1. I remember being really impressed by the sequence of Dog coming to the rescue at the beginning. But it's been a few years and the engine's starting to show its age even with all sorts of effects processing (as in L4D) that kind of obscure it like so much makeup.

NEway Wher's Gamebryo!?!

Headwoünd · « **Reply #5 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 12:36 »

Quote from: est on 16 Jul 2009, 05:31

8. Anvil Engine - I can see why people laud Assassin's Creed as being a beautiful game. The engine at least looks pretty cool in the Assassin's Creed 2 clip they show here.

I would rank this one higher, because Prince of Persia was created on this engine as well, which is the most gorgeus looking and sounding game I've played so far.

And I'd put CryEngine on 1st because Crytek's HQ is only a short train ride away from me. ;p

Source is just a phenomenon in terms how it still can keep up in the right hands - honorary mention for sure.

Be My Head · « **Reply #6 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 13:05 »

Infinity & SCUMM engines = awesome.

(Yes I know it was about 'this generation')

Also, I don't really pay that much attention to what video game engine a game is using, if it's fun and looks cool then it's good.

Melodic · « **Reply #7 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 13:46 »

No Source? I call BS on this list. Yes, other engines on the list look better, but that's not really important when it comes to building the basic foundation for a solid game. I would have ranked both Unreal 3 and Source much higher on the list because they're amazingly stable, and have the ability to handle almost any project thrown at them, with almost any graphical requirements.

Also Khar, I hope that was a joke.

Spluff · « **Reply #8 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 16:40 »

Source is not this generation - it's old and dated.

est · « **Reply #9 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 16:47 »

Oh, please note that my numbers don't mean anything. For some reason I wasn't thinking straight when I made the list, I was just using the numbers to get straight which engine I was talking about in reference to their list.

If someone asked me to number them I would reply something along the lines of "for which game/what type of game?" For example, I would love to see a RAGE engine version of an Elder Scrolls game, (or another open world fantasy RPG, I am not picky) so long as it looked more like Red Dead Redemption than GTA IV. However, I would also be partial to it being made on the Naughty Dog engine, especially if they wanted to implement the same kind of dialog-heavy scenes as were in Oblivion. If they backed the camera up a fucking tad so I'm not constantly staring right in the person's face they could really make use of the facial animations and gestures that we see in the Uncharted 2 trailer (although I thought that a few of the body anims there were not quite so impressive as the facial ones)

Oh hey, I just realised something. The RAGE and Naughty Dog engine games shown are both similar to say, Half Life 2 in my mind due to them being realistic to a point, then sort of filling in the uncanny valley by softening the edges and cartoonifying things just a tad. I definitely like that. As much as the CryEngine wows me with realism I appreciate that kind of style a lot more, I think. That said, I really loved the graphics in FarCry 2, which I am guessing is some variant of the CryEngine.

Spluff · « **Reply #10 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 16:55 »

Quote from: est on 16 Jul 2009, 16:47

That said, I really loved the graphics in FarCry 2, which I am guessing is some variant of the CryEngine.

Actually, Far Cry 2 was on a Ubisoft engine - that game had nothing to do with Crytek whatsoever. It was probably several steps below Cryengine 2, though it did have fantastic lighting.

KvP · « **Reply #11 on:** 16 Jul 2009, 17:22 »

Quote from: Spluff on 16 Jul 2009, 16:40

Source is not this generation - it's old and dated.

UE3 and Source came out around the same time.

Spluff · « **Reply #12 on:** 17 Jul 2009, 18:01 »

Quote from: KvP on 16 Jul 2009, 17:22

Quote from: Spluff on 16 Jul 2009, 16:40
Source is not this generation - it's old and dated.
UE3 and Source came out around the same time.

The first UE3 game was late 2006, the first Source game was early 2004 - it's almost a three year difference, and I believe the Source engine was developed a decent amount of time before the first game came out, whereas UE3 was developed almost in tandem with Gears of War.

est · « **Reply #13 on:** 17 Jul 2009, 20:05 »

The Source engine has gone through a bunch of modular updates since its release, though. Has UE3 been updated much since release? I've seen a few things about it being "tweaked", but that is not the same as the amount of change that has happened with Source.

satsugaikaze · « **Reply #14 on:** 17 Jul 2009, 23:12 »

Personally I thought CoD4's graphics were on-and-off. While there were fantastic moments of realism and great lighting and particle effects, there were other times where a player could see the engine working a little too hard and producing somewhat unrealistic lighting effects, especially on guns and facial expressions. Honestly, there were times where Captain Price looked like he had leprosy.

Modern Warfare 2 looks like the engine has improved quite a bit (or its usage), and it appears to have more consistency in its graphics. Fingers crossed.

I agree on the Geo-mod engine - it looks more like an exercise in physics and molecular physics. If I wanted that, I would have just gone with Ronin (Havok, DMM and Euphoria).

On a vaguely related note, I'm looking forward to the Serious Engine 3. I had fun times fighting off hundreds and hundreds of enemies on a computer with a GeForce 4 years back. I'm looking forward to the same experience, only better =D

Melodic · « **Reply #15 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 02:41 »

Source has been tweaked by Valve over the years, and the Orange Box engine upgrade deserves an updated version number at least. Is HL2 really "last" generation? TF2 certainly can't be.

UE3 hasn't been tweaked too much because the developer responsible for it hasn't touched it since. Other developers have used it as a base, and in that respect it's seen more facelifts than any other engine on the market, but since none of these are collaborative efforts, UE3 is still pretty much how it was in 2006.

KharBevNor · « **Reply #16 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 03:42 »

Quote from: Melodic on 16 Jul 2009, 13:46

Also Khar, I hope that was a joke.

But...but...I haven't posted in this thread yet...

Indeed I would not have but for this bizarre statement.

Explain yourself sir.

Spluff · « **Reply #17 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 05:55 »

Quote from: est on 17 Jul 2009, 20:05

The Source engine has gone through a bunch of modular updates since its release, though. Has UE3 been updated much since release? I've seen a few things about it being "tweaked", but that is not the same as the amount of change that has happened with Source.

There was a decent upgrade with UE 3.5 last last year, but apart from that I'm not sure.

Melodic · « **Reply #18 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 14:21 »

Uhm, I meant KvP.

SO HOW'S THE WEATHER UP YOUR WAY EH?

MrBlu · « **Reply #19 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 15:35 »

Oh, also, I don't remember if they fixed the physics engine in later renditions of CryEngine, but I know the version used in Crysis 1 was HORRIBLE. I mean, sometimes it worked, but other times it went so WONKY that I'd shoot a body in a vehicle and it'd fly all over the place...

Viperidae · « **Reply #20 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 12:32 »

A list based on graphics. Why am I not surprised.

KvP · « **Reply #21 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 12:47 »

Well, what else are they going to rate? Graphics are the core of most engines, that which sets them apart from one another. There are physics engines but they tend to be middleware and I doubt there are 10 of them in widespread use.

clockworkjames · « **Reply #22 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 12:57 »

Source deffo for physics, pretty groundbreaking tbh, unreal3 or whatever is also fantastically gorgeous even if it makes everything look like it is coated in a thin film of jizzzzzzz IW is just great too, even if all I ever like it for is cod4 on promodz.

Side note, anyone else think crash bandicoot when naughty dog was mentioned?

Alex C · « **Reply #23 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 13:35 »

Yeah, see, I'm not a game developer. I couldn't tell you firsthand what engine is easiest to use or which ones would limit me the most when trying to convey information to a player. I can only infer these things based off of the results developers present me with when playing a game. If this were still the late '90s perhaps I could prattle on about how the Build Engine's 2.5d sector chicanery gave us things like destructible environments and the ability to scramble around in air ducts or how the Quake engine brought fully 3d enemies to the table back when these ideas were still novel. But as it stands it's 2009 and a lot of groundbreaking features are now standard through one form of trickery or another. The difference between engines largely lies in technical jargon I won't pretend to understand and what features an engine has been most heavily optimized for. This means that presentation and how fast the silly thing runs on my decent-but-hardly-amazing gaming pc counts for a lot, so of course I'm going to talk graphics. Hence why if asked to name a good engine off the top of my head I would probably say Source simply because it looked great when it came out, runs fast and has aged gracefully.

KvP · « **Reply #24 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 13:45 »

But man, did it stutter when it first hit the market.

Alex C · « **Reply #25 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 14:07 »

I've never experienced the stuttering first hand. I didn't have a top end computer at the time or anything, but apparently I was one of those people with hardware that always played nice with the Source engine's texture and sound caches for whatever reason. Sometimes I suspect that blind luck and possibly voodoo rituals are bigger assets for the PC gaming enthusiast than any amount of technical know how.

evilbobthebob · « **Reply #26 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 14:10 »

Yeah. I find that with some game engines, I actually get higher framerates when I increase the detail levels...the whole ATI/Nvidia thing with graphics cards annoys me too, especially the way engines seem to end up optimised for one or the other.

clockworkjames · « **Reply #27 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 16:14 »

Quote from: evilbobthebob on 20 Jul 2009, 14:10

especially the way engines seem to end up optimised for one or the other.

I always thought this was bullshit for the sole purpose of spending money to get a company to say so.

Confirm/deny?

MrBlu · « **Reply #28 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 17:47 »

Quote from: evilbobthebob on 20 Jul 2009, 14:10

Yeah. I find that with some game engines, I actually get higher framerates when I increase the detail levels...the whole ATI/Nvidia thing with graphics cards annoys me too, especially the way engines seem to end up optimised for one or the other.

Most sides are swinging Green nowadays. Especially Capcom. RE5 is hurting my poor 4850.

est · « **Reply #29 on:** 21 Jul 2009, 06:14 »

Quote from: clockworkjames on 20 Jul 2009, 12:57

Side note, anyone else think crash bandicoot when naughty dog was mentioned?

Yeah, I did too. You know that the name isn't a co-incidence, right? That is what the makers of Crash Bandicoot are up to these days. I am pretty impressed.

clockworkjames · « **Reply #30 on:** 22 Jul 2009, 10:06 »

I kinda guessed it yeah.

Same name and all. In video games.

That game broke the square button on my pad.

Ozymandias · « **Reply #31 on:** 22 Jul 2009, 10:38 »

This is what I always think of when I think of Naughty Dog.

I remember reading about that code in Game Players and thinking "holy crap" and running over to the Sega Channel to try it.

Good times.

Ikrik · « **Reply #32 on:** 23 Jul 2009, 00:10 »

My friend is at the Vancouver Art Institute for Character modeling and uses Unreal 3. The reason, she tells me, for using it is because it is "hands down the best engine out there." Now, I don't believe her for a single second, if it really was THE best out there why wouldn't everyone use it. Why is it licensed and used so much? What is it really good at and what isn't it?

Oh, and for people who actually might use Unreal 3, she says you have to hide the files from Unreal or else Unreal will corrupt them...is that true or is she just really, really bad?

Melodic · « **Reply #33 on:** 23 Jul 2009, 01:03 »

Like I've said before, Unreal is all-encompassing. You can make it do whatever the fuck you want without so much as a whip-crack or several bottles of brandy. This is an engine that needs no schmoozing to jump into bed with you.

It just so happens that it's also been used by every other developer on the planet, so expect ~~her~~ it to be loose.

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Author Topic: Best 10 Game Engines of this generation [IGN] (Read 14949 times)