5 comments about Beginning Chess: Over 300 Elementary Problems for Players New to the Game.

1. If you are past the stage of having learned the basic rules of chess then you are ready to enbark of the adventure of learning chess strategy. And, what is most likely to result in wins and losses for an advanced beginner is not having a deep knowledge of openings or endgames, but TACTICS!
   If you were thinking of getting one of those 5,000 combination and tactics books you should hold off because you will be overwhelmed with a lot of postions that are not likely to come up in your games. Getting a book on basic chess tactics, containing the likely tactics you are going to see in play is most useful. Now there are a variety of ways and books to accomplish this. "Beginning Chess: Over 300 Elementary Problems" is a good starting place. Then you might consider one of the dozens of more complicated tactics books (such as "Winning Chess Tactis") or even a book containing opening tactics by getting an opening trap book (such as "Winning Chess Traps for Juniors" or "101 Opening Traps"). This is one of Mr. Pandolfini's best books.



2. This book contains 300 simple tactical puzzles. The solution to each puzzle is only one move long. For the great majority of these puzzles (297 out of the 300) there is only one correct idea, which is given in a separate solution section. Solutions are accompanied by the name of the tactic used as well as a short verbal explanation of the situation. Not only do the puzzles involve single move tactics, there are fewer than ten pieces on the board in each position. This should help those new to the game see the main idea and not "miss the forest for the trees".
   
   Problems are not grouped thematically. The 300 problems are divided into thirty tests, with each test containing ten problems. Many themes are represented in each test. Some recurring ideas include pins, piling up on pinned pieces, forks, skewers, checkmates, discovered attacks, and en prise captures.
   
   Many players might feel the positions given in this book are too easy, especially since en prise captures are included. The problems may be easy, but practicing these simple motifs builds "chess vision". Also, novice players often miss these moves in games. The tactics in this book are things players need to spot without thinking. The only way to get to this stage is practice.
   
   Look at some of your recent games and be honest with yourself. Did you lose any of these games because you hung a piece? Did you lose an exchange to a pin or a knight fork? Did you opponent blunder, only to escape punishment because you couldn't spot the chance to win material? If your answer was yes to any of these, seriously consider purchasing this book. More importantly, thoughtfully work through all the problems at least three times.



3. The book is hard to navigate through when you want to learn a solution to the problem.



4. For someone who already has a good handle on the basic rules, this book moves on and teaches some basic moves and tactics. I found it quite helpful and would recommend it if Chess is not the most importnat thing in your life.



5. I was somewhat disappointed with the book as I expected more discussion about how to implement chess strategy.

5 comments about More Art Puzzles By Number: From Easy to Mind Bending.

1. I am interested in books for advanced solvers. I am not well, and books like this help me pass the time when I am confined to my house.



2. As a reader of large-print books, I adore Kathy Weaver's puzzles. I never have to dig out my magnifying glass. And the pages of this book do not fall out the way her other book did.



3. Very entertaining and absorbing. Great stress reliever and gets the brain really working. A wonderful way to "get away". You feel like you have really accomplished something when you solve the puzzle. Hours and hours of great entertainment.



4. I truly enjoy Kathy Weaver's creativity, but I'm making the same complaint I made with the last book. Most of the puzzles are too easy! She has a tendency toward symmetry which almost gives away the puzzle.
   
   I would think it would be a wonderful book for beginners, though! If you've never tried Hanjie and you're thinking about it, give this book a shot. Good quality paper is combined with reasonable sized grids and the final results are the puzzles are usually fun! Also, if you're looking for a book to carry in your purse to fill in time while waiting at the dentist's office, this is the way to go.



5. I was pretty disappointed with this book. I haven't found a single puzzle in it that would be anywhere close to "mind bending". I personally love doing this type of puzzle, and purchased several different books of this variety, and this one was definitely my least favorite. I finally got tired of the monotony of these too easy puzzles, and gave the book to my 9-year-old. She's not having any trouble solving them either.

5 comments about Gaming: Essays On Algorithmic Culture (Electronic Mediations).

1. Interesting book, but not entirely what I was expecting. It takes a very filmic approach to videogames, focusing on gaze and perspective. There are some interesting parallels draw between film and games, but for the most part, the author seems more comfortable in a critical eye outside of games themselves.
   
   I lost interest in the book about halfway through, but I may pick it up again. If you are looking for a book about interaction or theories of play and leisure, this is not the book for you.



2. After Protocol, one of the best books in cyberculture, Galloway bring us Gaming, one of the best books in gameculture.
   Remembering Protocol's way, a bit of history, with some criticism after. The only problem is the book is toooo short, and very important issues, like gameart and mods, stay basics. I hope these can be developed in the next future.
   
   And I love cover, with the Unreal Healt PickUp int the hospital.



3. This is a fun book to read that is written in an accessible and engaging style that contains some really interesting ideas about gaming. Because this is more a collection of interrelated essays than a sustained argument, it makes sense to approach each essay individually.
   
   In the first chapter-essay, to understand the relationship between the player and the game space, the author arrives at a cartesian plane of possible gaming moments: The x-axis moves between the operator's and the machine's actions, and the y-axis moves between diegetic and non-diegetic actions. The result is that some common gaming moments can be reliably plotted in this plane. The author's approach here presents a way to initiate a discussion around action, but the entire argument doesn't hang on the validity of this model. This diagram forces the author to define game diegesis somewhat narrowly within the confines of certain kinds of games, and it seems somewhat arbitrary where he draws the line between diegetic and non-diegetic. However, it's an interesting beginning, and the terms and relationships Galloway sets up here permeate the remainder of the essays, contextualizing them all within the idea of game action.
   
   In chapter 2, the author goes to great lengths to justify his central claim that where film uses the subjective shot to represent a problem with identification, games use the subjective shot to create identification. The problem with first-person or subjective camerawork is that the perspective suggests agency or the ability to interact. It is in these moments in cinema where the camera exposes itself as an agent of looking, and the audience is confronted with its own status as observer. In other words, it is the fact that the first-person perspective holds forth the possibility of action that makes it such an uncomfortable technique in cinema, but such a natural arrangement in gaming where the possibility of interaction exists. The author then identifies certain cinematic situations that adopt visual "patina" derived from gaming. Some obvious examples of this "gamic vision" include the Heads-Up Display subjective shots from Terminator and RoboCop.
   
   In chapter 3, Galloway unpacks the idea of realism in gaming, distancing it from the so-called "realism" of high-end graphics that purport to be faithful representations of real world objects. Instead, since gaming is for Galloway an action and not an image, realism should be imagined on different terms. Again taking cues from cinema, Galloway argues that a better kind of realism for gaming would follow the model of neorealism in film in which neorealisticness depends on narrative and not form. Galloway mentions games like September 12th and The Sims as possibilities of a better realism in gaming because they engage social reality at a level in which the game action parallels the real-world action it comments on. In other words, a person is more likely to order a pizza than shoot aliens. Again orienting his discussion on action, Galloway concludes that the true correspondence obtained in realistic gaming is a congruence between the "material substrate of the medium" and the gamer's social reality.
   
   In the fourth chapter and the concluding one, Galloway makes a compelling case for the expressive potential of video games. In outlining the allegories of control in gaming, Galloway claims that, to the extent that successfully navigating daily life increasingly relies on selecting options from series of menus, gaming simply emulates this by enclosing it within the gaming action. The main example here is Civilization, which has been criticized for its Imperialistic politics. For Galloway, though, the problem with Civlization is not so much that it presents other nations and people groups as fodder for conquering, but that it condenses politics into a series of quantities that can be balanced and varied according to menu configurations. So Galloway does criticize the game, but mainly does so because it represents an index for the very dominance of informatic organization and how it has entirely overhauled, revolutionized, and recolonized the function of identity.
   
   In chapter five, Galloway ends up with six theses for countergaming, one of which is hypothetical. Though the book as a whole claims to be a collection autonomous essays, it's hard not to read in this essay the culmination of ideas oulined in the first four. Put briefly, countergaming involves establishing and then subverting the formal poetics of gameplay. One theme in this is the foregrounding of apparatus, or when games break. The author's main example in this essay is Jodi's untitled game in which the interface frequently breaks down or appears to reveal its underlying code. Similarly, countergaming can become visible in subverting representational modeling of objects with degraded artifacts. Note that this is not simply bad modeling or the modeling of abstract objects. Rather, the spatiality of objects is threatened by their exposed status as images. This discussion is useful not only for outlining a potential direction for artistic or activist game design, but also for providing a context for discussing more mainstream activity like Alternate Reality Gaming in which the game world is very much defined by its juxtaposition with its representation and underlying code, or more sinister-seeming accidents like actual rendering errors in game worlds. These phenomena are not countergaming as such, but it is possible to understand the disruption of their presence better if we see it as a kind energy working against the dominant hegemony of the game structure. Such things break the framework of social realism.
   
   Although I found this book intelligent and engaging, I'm still not sure what to do with it. The author proposes alternatives to popular critical models, but these are mostly gestures toward a way of thinking about gaming rather than a declaration of How Things Are. It is this approach, along with the approach to gaming as an action rather than games as objects, that is this book's most valuable contribution. I would recommend it to high-level game architects and virtual world architects who aren't afraid of a somewhat academic read.



4. Excellent book. Until now, I have read the first two essays. In the first one, Gamic Actions - Four Moments, the author has developed an analysis framework for games based on the concept of diegesis. In the second, he digs the origins of the First-Person Shooter based on the film history. Definitely, this book will be an important reference in my doctorate research.



5. I work in the video game industry and have launched over 10 titles on both console and PC, 4 of which have sold over 1 million units. This book, while academically interesting in the abstract (and that's why it's not getting 1 star from me), does not describe anything relevant to the real world of game creation or development. It does not contain anything that I would recommend to my business as either prescriptive for development activities or descriptive of player behaviors. Other than the need to publish for academic politics reasons, I don't know why the author wrote this book.

5 comments about Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends.

1. This was Penn & Teller's first book, and they made the actual book a prank in itself. Now, I won't give anything away, but the book is designed to drive anybody who reads it "the wrong way" batty. Plus, there are stories about how they did a lot of their tricks, including the infamous "cockroach trick" that made David Letterman leave his show. Plus lots of other mean stuff to pull on unsuspecting people.

   Oh, and there's also the full text of the screenplay for "Penn & Teller Get Killed." Here's hoping you have good eyes.




2. Please take note that this book originally came with a packet of trick accessories and another, smaller book. If you buy this book used and all you get is the main book, then many of the tricks in the book will be useless to you. Such is the case that happened with me.

   Penn and Teller are great writers (and showmen, of course) and you will thoroughly enjoy their stories, but there's just something missing when you are not able to perform all the tricks they mention because you don't have all the original materials. The mind-reading trick sounds so wonderful, but without the extra book you can't perform it, for example.

   Another impossible trick is the very first one where they tell you to call a phone number. I called it and was directed to the voicemail of someone within Random House (not the publishers of this book, btw). Being that the book came out in 1989 it looks like Penn and Teller have long given up that particular number.

   Maybe in a dusty old bookstore, sometime in the future, I might be lucky enough to stumble across this complete package, but until then, if ever, I can only wonder at what might have been.

   ...




3. I bought this book new, and I did get all the extra stuff that came with the book. Trust me, the book itself is all ya need. other than that, the exrta book doesnt have anything really important in it. if anything at all. The book is the most important thing. All you need is just a pair of red and blue 3d glasses for the rest of the stuff in the book if you read the first couple pages you will understand. It is a strange book due to the fact that the majority of the book is just to fool your friends. It doesn have great stories and some good tricks though. out of all 3 books, this is my least favorite but still one of my top 3 all time favs because of the authors.



4. I picked up this book since I'm a fan of magic and especially Penn and Teller, but was rather disappointed with this book.
   
   The book seems big because the book itself is meant to be a trick for your friends. You can leave it laying out on the coffee table without worrying about someone picking it up and learning all your secrets. That is, unless they read the whole thing. Parts of the book are printed just to fool your friends and some tricks don't work unless you know the secrets.
   
   Many of the tricks mentioned you won't be able to do yourself and are more of Penn and Teller revealing the secret behind cutting a snake or making cockroaches appear. There are very few tricks that you yourself will be able to make use of. Included with the book (or should be) are several aids used in some of the tricks, making the book feel more like a child's toy. One item that is quite useful is a book made specifically for the trick of mind reading, or making it appear that you can read minds. Although, it only works if you can casually leave the book on a table and casually say, "Let's use this one."
   
   In all, I found the book to not really live up to the standards of Penn and Teller and only found two or three tricks that might have actually worked on friends. If you're looking for a book full of tricks to really decieve your friends, keep looking.



5. This is a wonderful book, even without all (or any) of the accessories. The fantastic humor throughout makes this a great read even if you never intend to do the actual tricks.

5 comments about Half-Life 2 (Orange Box): Prima Official Game Guide.

1. Rate it a 4 out of 5 cause never have time to use it.To busy workin to pay for all my PC addictions not to mention gas...!!I also have one for DOOM3 and am pleased with it and found GOD mode alot of help for this overaged wanabe gamer... Weekend warrior W/half a deck..



2. First off, if you don't want to have the ending to the game ruined, stop reading these reviews because J. Boden ruins it for everyone. Also, don't buy the Prima Guide because there are spoilers in there as well. I made the mistake of getting this book when I was half-way through the game thinking it would help me, but I've pretty much figured everything out already on my own. The game Half-Life 2 is built around gently guiding you in the direction it wants you to go. The only purpose this book would serve is if you are absolutely stuck on a level and can't figure out what to do or where to go, then you could consult this guide for tips. But that hasn't happened for me yet and I'm playing on Normal difficulty. The weapons list and enemies list in this book for better or for worse has been copied on the Internet many times, so you can do a quick Google search and find most of the tips for free. This book only taught me one useful thing I couldn't figure out on my own: the machine gun has a grenade launcher (I forgot about the secondary fire option on most weapons). That's about it. I could see this book being useful for people having trouble completing a level, people who really like the colorful maps, or people who want to know what's going to happen ahead of time. If you're already into the game and don't need help, there isn't much here.



3. This is very well written and helpful if you get stuck while playing all the games in the Orange Box.



4. It's an oldie but goodie. The end cut seen could have been alot better, but so much fun to play. A must have for xbox gaming.



5. Well I live in costa rica, it takes 22 days to me to arrive but cuz i paid the cheapest service hehe. If you are looking for a 100% complete in the 5 games so you have to buy it !
   It Contains all the weapons, creatures all you can thin...
   5 Starts

5 comments about Ouija: The Most Dangerous Game.

1. Folks... I am a proud owner of this book. When I was with my neice in a bookstore looking for info about witches, this book flew off the shelf and landed right in front of where we were sitting in the isle. I kid you not. After reading this book, we decided to buy a cheap parker brothers version at the toystore. (Its a toy, right?).
   
   Anyways, we've spoken to so many different spirits and seen so many strange, unbelievable things in our lives now that we have but one choice... we believe in Ouija boards and the ability to contact the afterlife.



2. I love reading stories written by the deluded who claim the Ouija board has real powers. The Ouija board is mass-produced and sold by Milton Bradley. I also really enjoy the correlation between belief in the Ouija board and terrible grammar... gems like, "Donot mok the Oija one tim I did and now their are warts on my leg. also my tiolet is stoped up. Be ware."
   
   It would be sad if it weren't so darn funny! How stupid can you be?



3. I just want to affirm that like the book says, the Ouija board is a very powerful occultic device. I've seen it's power first hand, and have talked to a few others that have had even wilder experiences than I have with the Ouija board. As a Christian I firmly believe in demons, and the Ouija board is one great way to see their power. Will everyone witness demonic power with the Ouija? No. The demonic realm doesn't work like that, the devil is much more crafty than to show himself to loser skeptics such as many of those that have written posts here. Those same skeptics will also be in for a terrible shock when they meet God on Judgment day. Oh well, I'm sure they were warned.



4. No, I haven't read it! But I'm betting that as dangerous games go, Ouija is trumped by Russian roulette and drunken dirt bikers going head-to-head at chicken.
   
   This gives me an idea for a book: "Chewing gum: The Most Dangerous Habit." (After all, it is possible to choke on the stuff.)
   
   Four stars because people who find books about parlor games scary and life changing should be all means spend more of their money on more of the same!



5. Oh wow, I read this book after playing on a ouija board with my friends. I didn't sleep for 2 solid weeks after I read this book. The stories were fascinating, creepy, and I even remember hearing about one of them before in another book, which scared me even more! A must read for anyone who doesn't mind a little scare. I'm scared now just writing this review about it. It scared me that bad! Enjoy! :-)

5 comments about Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developer's Library).

1. This is a great walk through for a beginner. I would recommend it for its overview and insight into games and making games. I played a few more games because of it and was able to hone my eye to know why I enjoy and what I look for in games. Great first book; if only for the interviews.



2. Being an avid gamer, and dreaming of working in the video game industry, I pretty much knew everyhing there was in this book. However, if you're not like me, then I think you will find this book useful.
   The book goes from the beginning stages of video game design up to the completion of a video game. It gives really good information about what makes a game good and not tired and done before.
   The interviews of the game designers are kinda helpful; it really depends on if you already know the designers work and are familiar with it.
   This is a non-technical book though, so it won't tell you how to code a game or make models. It basically tells you all of the intangibles you can't learn in a class or really anywhere.
   
   It's worth the read.



3. I got this book to help in a class since it was a course requirement. It has alot of good info and intangibles about game design that is very helpful to anybody that would want to know.



4. I am currently using this as my Game Design textbook. As a student, it provides not only mere theory, but valuable interviews with upstanding designers. It is clear, and a joy to read.



5. The editorial review is kinda deceiving, so I'll just write what's missing on it: The book tries to balance between theory, practical examples and interviews.
   
   Which may be great to some, but not that great to others.
   
   The book is basicaly structured in this way:
   30-50 pages of Theory
   5-15 pages of a practical example (something about the theory on an actual game)
   15-40 pages of Interview (with some famous game designer... which might be good if the reader knows their games, and might be bad if the reader doesn't, since not much of it is exactly "game designer" content).
   
   That structure is repeated through over and over the book's 677 pages.
   But don't get me wrong, the content is still very good. Cover lots of stuff from developing the game concept, to more technical stuff like AI, Multi-playing, Level design and playtesting.
   
   So, a good book that covers lots of stuff on game design without going too deep in specific stuff.

5 comments about Planking Techniques for Model Ship Builders.

1. NOT presented in a truly orderly and logical manner. Nice pictures of models done by members of a certain Club, but does not adequately teach planking from scratch. Many terms are NEVER defined and there is no rigorous process defined; like I said, it's okay, IF you already know most of this stuff and just want the author's take/recommendations on which of a bunch of ways to go. Will confuse a novice into tears (I know it did me, and I've built a couple of models already).



2. Mr. Dressel is obviously a very experienced builder, and there is a great deal of information in the book, but it the way it is presented makes it very difficult to absorb.

   The organization of the material made for very frustrating reading. The planking techniques indicated in the title are scattered throughout the book in various sections, and are often separated by unrelated (but interesting) material.

   Nautical component terminology (like "wing transom" and "fashion pieces") should be clarified (preferrably by illustration) before or at least at the same time they are used in the text.

   The "how to" explanations would be much improved by diagrams, photos or drawings with step by step procedures, rather than the often vague descriptions provided.

   Overall, the reader must expend a great deal of effort to glean the information from the book.




3. Lots of [bad] pictures.

   A stuffy comment about "I have never had to personally use stealers"

   This guy may really be that good but the rest of us don't need to hear about it.

   Final comment: I kept the book but have been thinking about throuwing it in the recycling bin. It is NOT GOOD for beginners...or much of anybody else.




4. I own several other great books on ship modelling:

   Ship Modeling Simplified by Frank Mastini,
   The Built-Up Ship Model by Charles G. Davis,
   Ship Modeling from Stem to Stern by Milton Roth,
   and Historic Ship Models by Wolfram Zu Mondfeld, as well as other less comprehensive books.

   I have studied all of these books at length and found Dressel's text to be the most informative on not only planking but also framing techniques.

   While others who have reviewed this book seem to have gripes about it, I would challenge anyone to find a more detailed book on this discipline. The fact is that no one text exists that will provide all of the best tips and techniques, but this book gives the most detail that I have come across. I consider it a must-have for any model shipbuilder's library.




5. Very bad
   Poor organized, picture very bad
   Don't spend you many on this book

3 comments about Will Shortz Presents Summertime Pocket Kakuro (Will Shortz Presents...).

1. This collection of kakuro contains 150 puzzles ranging from difficulty levels "light and easy" to "beware! very challenging." I go through phases of doing tons of kakuro to doing none at all and this book definately has a lot to offer even the starting kakuro solver. There is a nice combinations table at the beginning of the book for those of us that like to have the possible combinations given instead of trying to figure them all out. The table provides all possible combinations for numbers and clues that have only one or two solutions (i.e. 11: 1, 2, 3, 5 and 12: 1, 2, 3, 6; 1, 2, 4, 5). The few other books I have encountered have only show the clues that have only one possible solution. That is one of the reasons I got this book.
   
   I am annoyed with some aspects of this collection. Some of the puzzles have starting numbers already filled in the puzzle. I have no idea why this is; but I wish it was completely empty. I also don't like the fact that the clue number boxes are colored in. It makes it difficult to quickly read the number. Finally, the paper quality is not optimal and easily rips or tears with a sharp pencil. I have found that if you place scotch tape over the entire puzzle it makes it more sturdy and you can easily erase pencil from the tape. It also seems that there are more easier level puzzles and fewer of the harder difficulty levels, which may trouble some more advanced puzzlers. Of course, if you are starting out, this book contains 65 of the easiest difficulty levels.
   
   Overall, this is a nice book if you can get over the small things mentioned (or if those things do not bother you). Good luck!



2. The size is smaller and more convenient for travel than some of the other puzzle books, but is PACKED with hours and hours of fun. If you haven't discovered the number puzzle craze yet--- you can start here!



3. I am an avid Kakuro fan and have purchased quite a few books. I was excited to see a book by Will Shortz because he has such a good name in the puzzle field. But I was very disappointed by this collection. The puzzels are simply too small. I enjoy a puzzle that is at least 10 x 10, I prefer even larger puzzle, ones that take up the full page. This book is filled with small puzzles, some are tough to complete but don't have the complexity of a larger puzzle.

1 comments about Beginning Backgammon: Strategy and Tactics for Winning Play.

1. I've learned to use some tips to beat other beginners about 95% of the time. It's an easy read. Highly recommended.