Unreal Engine + Unity 3D

After doing some research on both Unreal Engine 3 and Unity 3D I spent a day on each following tutorials and getting an idea for the tools and components each engine offered. The Unity 3D tutorial I followed was a step by step guide on how to create a simple 2D platformer using the assets and scripts provided by the tutorial.

Unity 3D Tutorial:The first thing I noticed about Unity that triggered alarm bells in my head was it's heavy reliance of scripting. Unity works with components which consistent of small Javascripts which tell the engine what to do and where to do it. After initially getting the hang of the scripts Unity's GUI is actually really user friendly and pretty simple to understand, it uses most of the same features as the Unreal Engine including lightening, built in physics, geometry building etc. Looking at the long long list of tutorials this engine seems really deep and powerful, almost overwhelming. The tutorial I finished (above) gives you a run down on how to make the game run on a 2D plane (basically just ignore the Z axis) and how to add scripts to GameObjects to make them react in an appropriate manner.

For anybody interested the tutorial can be found here: http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/2d-gameplay-tutorial.html

Unreal Engine 3 Tutorial:This tutorial was featured in the Mastering Unreal Technology guide book I recently ordered. It's basically a 'crash-course' on the main tools in Unreal. Including applying physics to game objects, particle effects, Kismet, texturing etc. This tutorial was more in depth and covered a broader range of areas in Unreal than Unity.