Ey yo.
Epic Games just released somethin they call the UDK: Unreal Development Kit. What's that? That's Unreal Engine 3.5 for free.
The unreal engine is pretty much the biggest motherfucker of a games development tool there is, and a license to develop in unreal is about $25,000. But now, to get independant developers hooked on it, it's about as easy to get as Audacity.
This is the software that runs Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Batman, Borderlands, Mirror's Edge, Shadow Complex, Army of Two, etc etc and it's free. So it's pretty much capable of pickin up whatever you're puttin down. Even Flash isn't free.
I won't write a fuckin huge post that nobody's gonna read, so if you're interested, then check this shit out:
www.udk.com

That's it. Just keepin y'all up to date.