Mark Rein on Unreal Engine: "We're still the best"

Epic VP Mark Rein has “reminded” people that the Unreal Engine is “still the best” technology to work with, batting away suggestions that Crytek’s tools are the better option for developers.

[BeastlyRig]

lol not really.. but still the most popular..

[CrzyFooL]

Simply the best... better than all the rest... na na na naaaa na naaa... something something...

[Etseix]

will never learn tsk tsk..

[lategamer]

Did you even read the article? Unreal Engine is the best engine, for developers wishing to make multiplatform games to use. It's very scalable, it works on PC, 360, PS3, Wii U, PSP Vita, iOS, etc.

[Kakkoii]

@lategamer:

Development wise though, CryEngine 3 for example is VASTLY easier to work with. And supports simultaneous development for PC, PS3 & 360, without the need to code and compile different versions for testing. With Unreal, it nowhere near the same to make a cross platform game. There is a lot of conversion and code change work that has to be done to create a version of your game for another console with it.

Plus Unreal still has a fairly legacy interface due to backwards compat needs. I've used both UE3 and CE3, and I can say without a doubt that CE3 is much nicer to work with.

[Mr_Lu_Kim]

I am asking still what this engine is best at?

Making pre-launch bullshots on a developer PC to drive up pre-order sales figures for Xbox 360 exclusives?

Not much else is the Unreal Engine best at.

[ATiElite]

so i'll put all my biasness aside when i say Crytek's new CryEngine 3 is pretty dam awesome to work with and looks 1000's times better than the Unreal Engine.

The CryEngine 3 allows you to make a game for 3 platforms simultaneously which was demonstrated at E3 2010 and i thought that was pretty dam cool as it allowed you to how it would look on each platform while you programmed across 3 screens.

Where as the ancient Unreal engine is just easily and blandly ported across 3 platforms. I also would take the Source Engine over the Unreal engine seeing how the Source is loved by modders and amateurs so it must be easy to work with.

[Kakkoii]

While I agree with everything else you said, source actually isn't that easy to work with XD. It's merely popular due to the games that came out on it in the early days, such a Counter Strike and the Half Life series, which were completely open to modification for early game nerds like us :) It was a great opportunity to have a developer that was so open to the community modifying their content, even going to the extent of providing numerous tools and documentation for it.

They have continued this tradition and thus it has stayed quite popular, especially with new great titles coming out frequently like TF2 and Portal. Plus Gary's Mod was a huge boost also.

[FlashXIII]

I think EA and Dice specifically would beg to differ.

[Calm Down Sunshine]

Still? As if you ever have been...?

[Wizziokid]

"We're still the best"

lol

[Why o why]

when i saw batman aa i had a renewed belief. The problem is most of the other devs dont get such great results. Easy to pick up very hard to master with only gears and batman being my standout go to games to show off the engine

[Fishy Fingers]

As a multiplatform, scaleable engine, you'd struggle to even think of another engine that compares to UE3, let alone argue its better. There are 'better' high spec engines though (CE3, Frostbite 2), but UE4 should only be a year or 2 away. Ease of use, support, these are other things that have seen the UE3 gain such popularity.

[bitboi]

they need to fix that texture load in problem when the engine is used on console games.

[Fishy Fingers]

Pop-in on console is primarily due to the lack of memory/RAM. If you want high res, detailed textures, your going to get pop-in.

[colonel179]

I don't like the Unreal Engine 3 at all. Everything looks weird, and it is very identifiable to know that a game is done with UE3 because of this look it has (which is very bad for me). I don't know how to describe that specific look though.

[LightofDarkness]

I disagree, it's not just the engine, it's the developers. They tend to leave on those post-processing filters (like those used in GeOW and UT3) because it's easier, and helps their game look comparable to a lot of what's on the market (other UE3 games :P).

For instance, I wouldn't have guessed that Mortal Kombat was a UE3 game by appearances alone, the developers did an outstanding job differentiating the visuals of that game. Mirror's Edge also eschews many of the typical UE3 game hallmarks in favour of it's more stark visual style.

UE3 makes it VERY easy to make a quality game in a short period of time, but unfortunately most developers are quite content to stick with the example motifs found in the development kit rather than try to be creative and go the extra mile to differentiate themselves.

[awi5951]

All the bioshock games and mass effect uses unreal and they look great.

[tigertron]

UE3 is only good when done well i.e. Gears, Mass Effect, Batman AA, Transformers WFC.

[nix]

instantbazinga.com/

[ThePUNisher]

What did I saw about Reining in that boasting? Their attitude of late has been Unreal.

[Der_Kommandant]

The problem i have with Unreal Engine is that all the games look the same. Gritty, Dirty and Brown Looking.

[palaeomerus]

Seems to me that it has pretty wide variety of how its games can look.

Mirror's Edge,
Borderlands,
Batman Arkham Asylum,
Asurah's Wrath,
Alice : Madness Returns
Bioshock Infinite
DC Universe Online
Dust 514
Enslaved Odyssey to the West
Global Agenda
Hunted The Demon's Forge
Mass Effect 2
Shadow Complex
Singularity
Lost Odyssey
Undertow
The Wheelman
Rainbow Six Vegas
Mortal Kombat
Dungeon Defenders

Seems to me that it has pretty wide variety of how its games can look.

[Kran]

Epic love to brag to much.

I love their games, but I wish theyd stop bragging and just make the games.

[bozebo]

the best if you like input lag

[LightofDarkness]

Turn off mouse smoothing and vsync = problem solved.

[bozebo]

duh, that would usually solve the problem. I'd say for most unreal engine games I've played that didn't help much.

Unreal Engine 3 takes the 2D cursor location from Windows, not the change in X and Y in units directly from your mouse hardware. Which means it's impossible to have smooth mouse movement outside a thin range of sensitivity/dpi ratios (not to mention a massive loss of precision). It took me about 20 minutes of messing with configs to find that sweet spot for ME2, and longer for Bioshock 2.

For some reason Source has also done that since Orange Box, but it only becomes a problem at low sensitivities and/or resolutions and/or frame rates.

[Saito]

Frostbite 2.0