My reviews of the best free Game Engines/IDE's.

[Vanilla]

I don't know how many of you troubles with making games (Desktop). I suspect most of you makes it with PHP or whatever. Anyway, i've thrown a post together regarding what I think is the 3 best free game engines/editors.

1. Unreal Development Kit / UDK
The UDK was released as free software for people that don't make money with it (and 99$ for people that does and 25% royality for all that makes over 5000$). The UDK is part of the same software used to make fabolous games such as Mass Effect 1 & 2, Gears of War, Mirrors Edge, Bioshock, Americas Army, Unreal Tournament and more. It's all powered by the Unreal Engine 3.
It provides a all-in IDE editor that has everything you need to make a standalone distributable game. It has a f*ckload of 3rd party plugins responsible for stuff such as AI, Occlussion Culling, Global Illumination and more. You can script your games with a custom language called UnrealScript (Java derivative). It (the UDK) provides you easy access to one of the most prominent engines in the gaming industry with exceptional graphics.

Link: http://www.udk.com/


2. The Unity3D Engine
The Unity3D engine (2.6) isn't as widely known as the above, but provides an exceptionally better and easier developent environment.
Unity3D has it's roots in the Mac scene, but recently migrated into the Windows scene too and made it a truly cross-platform tool capable of exporting games to Windows, OS X, Wii, iPhone and the most amazing thing is that your games is even available and playable in your internet browser with a Unity3D plugin (Just like Flash Player!). Unity3D v3 will be released around summer 2010 and will feature exports to Xbox360 and Playstation 3 making it a truly remarkable engine for cross-platform games. V3 will also future a lot of new graphical improvement which will possible make it rank up with the Unreal Engine. Unity3D comes freely as an indie version with a few missing features (Dynamic Shadows, Caustics etc., In-Game videos renderings), which can be unlocked through and upgrade to the Pro version. All in all, this is also a recommendable engine/IDE. I forgot to mention that you can script with 3 different languages. Javascript (Really!), C# and Boo.


Link: http://unity3d.com/


3. Blender Game Engine
The Blender Game Engine is a strange thing, because the application itself (Blender3D) isn't a game engine, but a complete Open Source 3D application making you able to create beatiful graphical renders and animations (Disney Pixar stuff). The BGE is merely an extension of the application, but recently the BGE have recieved a tremendous ease of use through it's logic brick-system and the tightly integrated python system. Unlike the 2 above, you have everything you need in one place. Literally, start up the free application, press >>P<< and you've have the start of a game.
It's very easy, and tightly integrated. It's absolutely free, open-source extensible. If you need anything, find a python sample on the community boards or code it yourself. Blender 2.5 is coming out soon (around summer i think), and it will feature a nice overhaul of the game engine, the logic-brick system and it's capabilities. Worth looking out fore.

Link: http://www.blender.org

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Other notable game engines, that i don't have that much experience with:

- Source Engine (well known for it's modability)
- ID Tech (Open Source engine for games like Doom and Quake)

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Oh, and please have a look at the games i'm currently working on:
- By myself (Arkine Interactive) (Unity3D Engine):
http://www.moddb.com/games/lost-echo
- And that I work on with other people (Unity3D Engine):
http://www.moddb.com/games/call-to-vietnam

I recommend Mod Database (Moddb.com) for nice mods and games:
http://www.moddb.com

Cheers! ;)