Game Engines are the core libraries which is used as the architecture to develop the game. It cuts down the pressure on development teams as all the complex coding is already written in the engine. The core functions that Game Engine provides are rendering(2d or 3d), physics engine or collision detection, sound, scripting, artificial intelligence. They provide all the core functionalities needed to develop a game while reducing the costs, complexities and time.

There are libraries that are developed to provide only one specific functions, called Middleware. Like Havok is a middleware which offers developers the foundation for creating realistic physics simulation.

Developers  license the engines like id tech, unreal to develop their titles. Some developers use their in-house proprietry engines created by themselves for their own titles. And their are also some free open source engines out there like OGRE, JMonkeyEngine.

Now i’ll discuss about some very well known Game Engines, Middleware And Engines used in making next-gen games.

Unreal Engine:

Unreal is a game engine developed by Epic Games. The games made by this engine are Gears of War franchise, Bioshock, splintercell, MassEffect and many other. This Engine has won the Game Developer’s Front Line awards in engine category for three consecutive awards. This Engine is Game Developer’s Front Line Awards 2008 Hall Of Fame winner. You can read Why Unreal Engine was the Hall Of Fame Winner.

Gears of War 2 made with Unreal engine

Havok

Havok is a physics engine developed by Havok. Havok offers developers the foundation for creating realistic physics simulation through efficient and optimized calculation. The Titles that used Havok engine are Crackdown, Assassin’s creed, F.E.A.R 2:Project Origin, Fallout 3, Halo 3 and many more. Havok won the Game Developer’s Front Line Awards 2008 in Middleware category. Read why Havok won the award ?.

Company of Heroes using Havok engine

cryEngine

Developed by CryTek is the force behind those killer graphics of crysis. They set a new standard for visuals. CryTek released a GDC demonstration movie for their latest all-in-one game development solution using cryEngine 3, premiered at GDC 2009 in san fransisco. cryEngine 3 is the first development platform for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, MMO, DX9/DX10 and includes cryEngine 3 Sandbox level editor and “What you see is what you play” tool designed for professional developers. 3 comes with significant feartures for consoles and next-gen game development.

crysis made with cryEngine

R.A.G.E (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine)

R.A.G.E is a game engine developed by a team called “Rage Technology Group” at Rockstar san diego. Rockstar has integrated a few third party middleware like euphoria character animation engine and Bullet physics engine. GTA4 was developed with this cool engine. Rockstar are working on a game Red Dead Redemption which uses R.A.G.E engine. The trailer of Read dead Redemption looks really cool with realistic horses, towns, prairies….with ralistic weather. R.A.G.E engine provides functionalities to handle realistic weather effects, complex A.I, large worlds..etc

Check this video of Red Dead Redemption, its jusshows you what R.A.G.E is capable of doing.

Grand Theft Auto 4 made with R.A.G.E engine

Naughty Dog Game Engine

This Engine is developed by Naughty Dog. This year naughty Dog showcased their upcoming title Uncharted 2 at sony playstation 3 conference, E3 2009 . I was awestruck by watching the trailer and demo. I had never seen such a cinematic game(demo) before, graphics looked so awesome and cool. Naughty Dog with Uncharted 2 really showed the world what Ps3 is capable to do. So i would say Naughty Dog maxed out the Ps3 with Uncharted 2. The demo showcased realistic environments, smooth animation-interaction, cinematic feel with cinematic camera work …seamless transition between cinematic and gameplay.

So there are other engines also that i haven’t mentioned like Valve’s Source engine which gave titles like half-life franchise, left 4 dead, Infinity Ward’s IW engine which gave Call Of Duty franchise(not all sequels), Ubisoft’s Anvil engine which was used for Assassin’s creed….and many more engines. I have just  quickly looked at just some good engines that took my interest. This post is not on best engines but tells about good engines.

Gracias.

Hola everyone.

I have seen many gamers on forums discussing on the debate: Xbox 360 vs PS3. Half section of gamers says Xbox 360 is best and other half says PS3 is superior and debate goes on and on. Many newbies gets confused and they do not know which consoles to buy.

I don’t have any of the consoles at my home. I have 2 friends, one of whom has got xbox 360 and other has got both 360 and ps3. So i just visit their places frequently to play games and experience the gaming on both consoles. So here i am going to share my experience with both consoles.

Before sharing my experience, i want the readers to know that this post is not on the debate: Xbox 360 vs PS3. This is post reflects just my experience so don’t make any issues with it.

So first i will give u a glance on inside the two consoles that run these amazing game titles:

PS3:

a) Seven Single Threaded Processors (3.2 GHz)

b) One Multi-Threaded cell processor (3.2 GHz)

c) Nvidia ‘RSX’ custom made graphic processor

Xbox 360:

a) Triple-Dual threaded core Xenon Processor (3.2 GHz)

b) ATI ‘Xenon’ GPU

That was the inside configuration of both systems.

I am not a fan of either consoles. I am a gamer and i love to play and enjoy games.

Many gamer says that they have played specific game titles on both consoles and they found Xbox 360 version better and superior than PS3’s for example: GTA 4. But i would like to mention that almost all multi-platform titles like GTA 4, Assasin’s creed..etc are a 360 to PS3 port, so these games may not look better on PS3 and look good in Xbox 360. Like GTA 4 is a 360 to PS3 port, so developers had to cut some corners in order to ship the title on market in time. So i would say if time and money was there then the games would have been absolutely identical.

Gears Of War was an amazing title which is a 360 exclusive title. I am a big big fan of gears of war franchise and i still play it with my friends on split-screen mode on his xbox system and i never get bored. But but i and ofcourse you will notice that the game was short because xbox 360 only had dual layer dvd to work with, whereas PS3 has more disc space to work with to make bigger and better games. When KillZone 2 came out, it had an amazing graphics and i noticed that PS3 totally outperformed 360. Uncharted was also amazing cinematic game. Killzone 2 is one of the best fps games that i have played.

I love Xbox live. The interface is excellent and interaction between player is damn awesome and feature like achievements is also cool. I liked Xbox live more the way than PSN. In PSN i cannont send message to my friend from within the game. I didn’t get the facility of voice chatting on PSN. On Xbox live i can reach my friends right away in a single button press, send them voice/text message and invite my friend to the server where i am playing. Xbox live is just very very cool. But PSN is free for most part and for Xbox live u have to subscribe dollars $$$ But i am really cool with Xbox live, its just very cool than PSN.

Putting Games on side for the moment and talking about movies than thumbs UP to PS3. PS3 is undoubtely the superior movie player with its integrated Blu-Ray technology. It has also got amazing sound quality. So i would say here Ps3 is far more better than Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 makes a annoying background sound which really annoys me while watching the movie. PS3 is quiet during the movie on.

One thing that my friend and i like is Xbox live arcade that provides variety of arcade games than PSN provides.

In past Xbox 360 had a good line-up of exclusive games than Ps3 had. In 2007 Xbox had exclusive hit titles like Halo 3, BioShock and Mass Effect, whereas PS3 had titles like Uncharted, ratchet and clank future:tools of destruction. Many gamers said that PS3 didn’t have good varied exclusive titles. But 2008 was the PS3’s years as they had the best game line up with titles like Metal Gear Solid 4, Resistance 2 and Litle Big Planet wheras 360 had a nice titles like Gears Of War 2. So varied of good games is no longer an issues for PS3 as it was in past.

Well this was my experience till now, but there is more to experience. There is so much tight competition between the consoles. Each console has their advantages and disadvantages. I enjoy both system.

Gracias.

In year 2008, xbox 360 and playstation 3 were head to head fighting for the top spot. According to the gamer.blorge.com both consoles sold/shipped approximately 10.8 million for the entire year.

The PS3 had a best games line up in year 2008:

METAL GEAR SOLID 4

RESISTANCE 2

Better games line up was the PS3’s saving grace. According to NPD PS3 sold more than doubled the sales of the XBOX 360 after the metal gear solid 4 was released.

The XBOX 360 also sold as many as the ps3 because of the massive price cut near the end of the year. The XBOX 360 also had a good games like Gears Of War 2 :

But the low price moved XBOX 360 head to head with PS3.

With PS3 and XBOX 360 getting sold same amount, the exclusive games: Gears of war 2 and metal gear solid 4 also sold around the same amount around 5 million.

So year 2009 will see the interesting race between xbox 360 and ps3 as ps3 is cutting their price.

According to nexgenwars.com , they are showing the current sales number of consoles: