UE3 and Adobe Flash 11 brings 3D gaming to the web

Remember when Internet flash games were badly-drawn 2D vectors, or faux-3D isometrics, that drew tears from your eyes?

Well it would seem the days of web games that look like they were made by university students who have too much time on their hands – are over.

At Adobe MAX 2011, Adobe’s developer conference, Epic Games unveiled Unreal Engine 3 running through Adobe Flash Player 11, which has just been released.

The announcement was coupled with terms like “programmable graphics pipeline” and “hardware-accelerated Stage 3D APIs” – but the crux of the matter was this: high-end 3D games are now possible on the web.

While Flash has been looking less appealing in recent months thanks to HTML5, it still remains the main technology behind the games running on social networks and all over the Internet; and now with Unreal Engine 3 added to the equation, the mind boggles at the possibilities.

We love the charming graphics of Plants Vs. Zombies, and Angry Birds and the like – but the thought of being able to disembowel friends in Gears of War over the web is exponentially more appealing.

“With UE3 and Flash, games built for high-end consoles can now run on the Web or as Facebook apps, reaching an enormous user base,” said Epic Games Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Technical Director, Tim Sweeney.

Stop the presses! I might have just actually found a reason to join Facebook, guys.

Check out UE3 running through Flash 11, below.