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Every game runs on an engine that either makes or breaks the concepts that the developers set out to accomplish during the months leading up to launch. Each of these engines has a different objective, whether it’s making the sexiest game out there, or creating one of the most realistic physics systems for all those ragdoll-powered moments of glory. Whether you’re trying to create the most amazingly lit landscape seen in gaming yet, or if you’re going for unique concepts that can only be delivered on the most versatile of video game engines, you can’t go wrong with any of the following gaming engines.

Havok

Havok has been one of the most dominant physics engines in gaming for awhile now, used by nearly every game from Halo 2 to Dead Space. As a physics engine, Havok excels by maintaining reasonable frame rates and other stability even during hectic building explosions and debris showers. While offering developers a flexible and intuitive way of maintaining physics within their games, Havok gets props for being a fantastic add-on to any gaming engine that needs that extra bit of oomph in the realistic science department.

Unreal Engine 3

Who didn’t see this one coming? UE3 is perhaps one of the most widely-used game engines in the industry today, and it’s easy to see why. With fantastic developer tools, a powerful SDK for the mod-making community, and absolutely stunning graphical powers, Unreal Engine 3 stands at the top of the pack regarding graphical capabilities. While it may not have the most solid multiplayer optimizations that other engines employ, it still stands as one of the most impressive and remarkable engines to date. Tim Sweeney deserves every inch of that Ferrari he drives with this astonishing accomplishment.

CryEngine

Crytek has been making gorgeous games (well, just one more gorgeous game) since the milestone release of Far Cry, which blew the previous benchmarks for gaming rigs out of the water. Years later, the company released Crysis, which set the bar even higher with photorealistic graphics and absolutely mind-blowing special effects. Although you’ll need to spend roughly $600+ ton upgrades to a mid-level rig to get the game to run at a high frame rate on maximum settings, Crysis rewards you with such gorgeous eye-candy it’s hard to complain once you boot it up. With the recent announcement of CryEngine 3 for consoles, we can expect to see such gorgeous graphics on consoles as well.

Euphoria (aka NaturalMotion)

Probably one of the most impressive physics engines I’ve seen since next-generation consoles were announced, the Euphoria engine is capable of generating the next level of ragdoll-like physics. Where Euphoria really stands out is in its intelligent ragdoll system, which implements a self-preservation mentality into every intelligent entity in a game, meaning that if a person is falling out of a car, they will actively try to protect their head and other valuable parts of their body in real-time. The beauty of Euphoria is that it doesn’t require any additional scripting or animation from developers, which takes a huge load off the art team’s collective backs. You can see some demonstrations of the Euphoria engine here.

Source

Mostly known for its introduction with Half-Life 2, Valve’s Source engine is one hell of an engine. Capable of delivering fantastic facial expressions just as easily as stunning vistas, Source is one of the few engines that is (as far as I know) the only used by the developer that created it. Perhaps Valve intended it to be this way, as every game that has come forth from the engine has been spectacular and unique. While Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source shared similar styles, both Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 have proven that the Source engine is incredibly versatile and just as powerful as some of the other top contenders.

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