Best Game Engine

[Fragony]

Dark engine. Still is, always been.

[Productivity]

The id tech series of engines. By far the most important in terms of FPS engine development that there have ever been. Every major engine has been highly derivative of these sets and the software development world has a hell of a lot to thank id and Carmack for.

[professorspatula]

RenderWare - powered a huge number of games over the years. Provided decent middle-ware to numerous developers. A shame EA got their grubby hands on it. It powered Grand Theft Auto III and it's many other PS2 era sequels.

Actually I have no great affinity with the engine, but it's one of those overlooked things when people talk about game engines.

Adventure Game writers on the old ZX Spectrum would no doubt say PAWS is the greatest engine of all time!