What is a good & free game engine? [closed]

Question

For C++, Java, or Python, what are some good game + free game engines that are easy to pick up?

Any type of game engine is okay. I just want to get started somewhere by looking into different game engines and their capabilities.

Answer 1

For my Computer Graphics course in College we used the open source OGRE 3D engine. Not only is this an extremely robust 3D engine but it was a blast!

Develop a medium sized game using it and you will get a good taste of many of the different game programming specialties. You'll find yourself doing 3d modeling, sound effects, physics programming, AI, the works.

alt text http://www.mactabilisarts.com/Images/multiplayer%20games.jpg
Screenshot of a recent OGRE 3D Game

Answer 2

Java hasn't got any love here? For 2D and 3D OpenGL on win/mac/linux/android, try libgdx. For 2D with API similar to Java2D try Slick. LWJGL for pure OpenGL bindings. Ardor3D or JMonkeyEngine for a higher level 3D library. For networking, KryoNet.