You can't really play with the source code because you still need all the game's geometry, textures, sounds, maps, and other incidentals. The source code is the uncompiled software code in a high level programming language. Source code, unlike compiled code, includes comments, meaningful identifiers for variables, and is ordered in multiple files with an understandable hierarchy that makes it readable and understandable.
You can decompile existing code into a high level language but it isn't really readable because you don't know the name or signicance of each block of instructions and data.
Game engines like the UT2k3, DoomIII, Half-life2, represent huge investments of time and money and engine licensing represents a lucrative business. Now any and all techniques used in the rendering or sound engine can be copied or imitated freely by anyone with the source code. They could incorporate it into their own engine with no one being the wiser. Code checkers can tell if something is lifted straight, but certain intellectual property like algorithms and architectural ideas can't be traced.
I would give my first born child to have just one hour to learn from it =)
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"It better be funny"
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