Geo-Mod Engine

When Digital Illusions dropped the Frostbite Engine and its dynamic destruction on us with Battlefield: Bad Company, we were suitably impressed by how cool it was to see the battle landscape change shape during the action. And when LucasArts began showing off Digital Molecular Matter in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed which enabled the world to break apart realistically under Force, there were many 'oohs' and 'ahs'. But Volition Inc delivered the real deal in Red Faction: Guerrilla using an updated version of the famed Geo-Mod engine from the 2001 series debut.

Far more than just mindless destruction, the Geo-Mod engine's power comes in its ability to instil the objects being destroyed with real-world properties so that they react believably not only to the player's actions, but also to those of other objects. To then facilitate such explosive action from multiple A.I. and user-driven source points simultaneous to this destruction, and in a massive streaming world at a great frame-rate, is truly impressive stuff. Plus, it all works across the network in fast, fun multiplayer modes. While it may not have the niftier tricks of some of the other engines on this list, its destruction capabilities put it in a world of its own.