Game Engines; Properties, Reasons and Capabilities

MSXBox writes: "When you usually think about a game engine, you usually think about the graphics and visuals of a computer game. Great game engines such as the one used for Gears of War, the Unreal engine, and the one used for Bioshock… which also happens to be the Unreal engine, "wait that can’t be right, they look totally different!" (explained later). So when we usually think about graphics engines we think about games with eye candy and blistering detail, such as the two already mentioned, but game engines are a much larger portion of in game development and are a part of the decision making process through the entirety of the game’s creation."