4 comments about The New York Times Sunday Crossword Omnibus- vol 6.

1. I'm pretty good at word puzzles but these books by the NY Times are continually able to stump me. I keep doing them because they increase my vocabulary enormously. I always keep a dictionary close by, and disect each clue after I have completed the puzzles. NEVER have I done a whole puzzle without aid! This keeps me humble!



2. Two hundred New York Times Sunday crosswords at a nickel apiece is a great deal. The book is loaded with the work of well-known as well as less well-known constructors. Most of the puzzles are quite challenging and interesting to work and there is an ample number of humorous concepts included in the batch.
   The drawback to the book - i.e., the "price" we pay for the publisher's generosity - is the lack of perforation and/or distance between the working areas and the binding. Having to write around curves on the top couple of lines across is a bit irksome.
   Yet, all in all, this book is a true bargain and well worth the cost and the minor inconvenience.



3. Exciting crossword puzzles, as ever. However, the numbers in the grid itself are so poorly printed (cheap paper or ink) that misreading an entry is not uncommon. I prefer to speind time thinking of an answer, not staring closely at the puzzle to be certain what number is in a given square. There are plenty of preferable alternative puzzle sources for those who, like me, would rather pay more for an adequately printed product.



4. This collection has what it takes to keep me happy. The book itself is a well made soft-bound type where the pages don't come out, but I don't have much trouble with them. I just fold the thing over and work on either side. You can use either pencil or pen, but pencil can get blurry... The puzzles are long enough to occupy my mind for a few hours each. The clues are mostly solveable with a fair amount of thinking and puzzling. I have to peek sometimes. I like this kind of action over a set that either has me in the back half the time or I'm never in the back and can get the puzzle done in under an hour. The time frame's pretty current, so you have to know your current history along with the stuff from the last decade, which is good, in my book- tripped me up a few times already.. All-in-all, I'd say it's standard fare for this particular line. If you've never tried these puzzles, give them a whirl. They give good value for your money. If you do them in pencil, they erase well, so you can replay the book a few times before it wears out. When I started this type of puzzle, I needed a dictionary a lot, but rarely do now, having learned how to constructively solve and get the maximum type of enjoyment these books offer.

5 comments about Expedition to Undermountain (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Adventure).

1. Good Campaign Book. This is the first one that I had for the new encounter Structure. The only thing I wish is they did a summary list of all the equiment that you can loot and the price for each at the end of the chapter.



2. We're sitting here at the end of the adventure, after loads of work and effort put into interpreting 200+ pages of material, and the over all player response is, "That's it?" As the DM I've never had to work so hard to bring an adventure to life. In the end, though, neither myself or my players feel we have much to show for it. Eight levels of character development have pretty much been wasted. It's hard not to be bitter about this product.
   
   So why two stars instead of just one or zero? The book does start off with a fairly good synopsis of the various levels of Undermountain. It's a collection of thumbnail sketches, to be sure, but it's enough to generate some ideas if the DM is ready to invest some work to flesh things out. And the core idea, a major personality in the Forgotten Realms being eliminated, could have easily been the kick-off to something truly exciting.
   
   That excitement never came though. This is such a scattered, non-motivated adventure. The "Encounter Format" is cumbersome and redundant, not user-friendly in the least. And unless your players like to dungeon crawl for the pure pleasure of killing and looting, there's no real reason for them to move from one chapter to the next. The story is elusive even for the person sitting there with the book . . . the players will never have the faintest idea what's actually going on. The book should come with a handout to give to players at the end which explains what they've just spent all their time acheiving.
   
   The cover also suggests that it will take characters from level one to level ten. We just crept into eight by the end, and even at that level nothing about the final chapter was the least bit challenging to them in terms of tactics or combat.
   
   If you really want to explore Undermountain, I'd have to suggest trying to get your hands on older material from the previous edition or playing the Neverwinter Nights computer game. This book feels like the producers of D&D are trying to close the doors on Undermountain once and for all so that they never have to deal with it again.



3. I expected alot from this module,considering the backdrop of Hallaster's base of operations-Undermountain.
   The module lacks when compared to other recent WOTC releases.I would recommend avoiding this module unless your willing to increase the encounters and storyline.The magic of Undermountain is lost in this compendium.



4. This adventure is highly disappointing. It does not live up to the quality of the other adventures currently being published by Wizards of the Coast. The book provides a summary of the established dungeon known as Undermountain and then details an adventure in that setting. The book proclaims that it is an adventure designed to immerse the players in this dangerous and detailed dungeon. However, the actual adventure information is not presented until page 51 and very little of Undermountain is actually detailed.
   
   It appears that almost no quality assurance was applied to this book. One of the most striking examples of this lack of quality is the map of the main inn and entry point for the adventure. The inn, named the Yawning Portal, is supposed to have a huge well that the PCs will use to enter and exit Undermountain. However, the published map not only does not shown the required portal, it does not depict an inn large enough to contain said portal.
   
   The encounters were highly unbalanced and seemed jumbled together with no real thought or planning. There were frequent references to organization, groups, locations, and characters that were not detailed in the adventure. While this may not be a problem for Realms aficionados it reflects poor craftsmanship.
   
   It seems that the writers of this adventure were trying to jam too many ideas into this book for the page count. If WotC had split this book into to a source book and an adventure book the disjointed nature of this book may have been alleviated. However, since I found the adventure itself to be mediocre, this may not have been much help.



5. The editor should be hung by the thumbs, that said: This is a truly pathetic product which does not at all capture the flavor of Undermountain. This product was rushed to the shelves without any care for D&D players and DM's whatsoever. The flow is cumbersome, the story lines weak, the writing poor, and no one with an education above 7th grade checked this product before mass producing it. Way to go wotc.

5 comments about Cryptanalysis.

1. I bought this book over 40 years ago... It is, by far, the best book for pen-and-pencil cryptogram solving that I have found. It gives sufficient information to allow attacking any pen-and-pencil cryptogram. If it is followed by Bauer's "Decrypted Secrets," one would have a very thorough introduction to methods of solutions (Bauer is quite mathematical, but also recommended to the mathematically inclined). An excellent introduction with a great deal of useful information that is probably the best available source for pre-computer techniques.



2. As a former codebreaker with the ASA/NSA during the VN war, I often found it helpful to have a copy of Helen's book handy, and spent many enjoyable hours solving the sample ciphers provided. This valuable book not only describes many historically significant encipherment methods, but also goes into detail about how to break them. Afficianados of manual ciphers might also wish to contact others with similar interests and can do so through the American Cryptogram Association at www.cryptogram.org.



3. This appears to be a reprint of the little book by the same title that utterly consumed me, probably for hundreds of hours, in the 1970's. It was old then, and looks even older now. And yet, pushing letters around on a page is timeless. It's laughably low-tech and yet, utterly modern, all at the same time. Some of the tricks and techniques described are so profound and clever, they are reminiscent of calculus in how they demonstrate the power of the well-applied human mind. This book can be an absorbing hobby all by itself. Plus when I found a coded note written by some girls in my junior high school, I was able to read it...



4. This Dover reprint is an excellent treatment of classic cryptographic and cryptanalytic techniques. Cyphering techniques from Caesar to World War I, including both transposition and substitution ciphers, are well covered, as are the classical cryptanalysis techniques for breaking them. You will not find any discussion of comtemporary digital ciphering or computer-based cryptanalysis, but the work, although dated, is an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of both cipher making and breaking.



5. A good book that reviews methods for pen-and-paper solution of simple substitution and transposition ciphers. Dating from before World War II, the main interest here is historical. Nevertheless, it is quite well written and enjoyable, with many examples to solve (most solutions included, but there are a few unsolved ciphertexts).

5 comments about Cryptogram-a-Day Book.

1. If you like puzzles but you can't stand those complicated New York Times crossword puzzles that only my dad can descipher, then pick up this book and treat yourself to something different. Use your intuition and the math-oriented parts of your brain (which are closely related) to figure out the sayings and who said them. Have fun. If you don't like them, just go back to the New York Times and send me the answers. :)



2. I've been a fan of cryptograms since I stumbled across them in my local newspaper - this book is a great collection and a good way to occupy your time and mind whenever you're bored or just feel the need to solve something! I really liked it because the cryptograms are for the most part lovely quotes by many famous people - you'll be treasuring the quotes long after you've solved the puzzle. The only thing about this book is that - the title isn't true - once you buy it you won't be able to limit yourself to just one cryptogram a day, that's for sure! Definitely a great catch and one to look into.



3. I was VERY DISAPPOINTED in the the Cryptogram-a-Day Book. It did not have the hint letter to start the puzzle off.



4. I've been doing the cryptograms in this book on & off for quite a while now. I tend to go from one type of puzzle to another - enjoying each type for a month or two, and then moving on to something else. For the last several months, I have been engrossed with Sudoku puzzles (a numbers/logic puzzle), and have only recently moved back to doing cryptograms again...
   
   So, I got out all of my cryptogram books, dusted them off, and jumped right into the fun of decoding again (smile). I had forgotten just how much fun (and sometimes frustrating) cryptograms can be!
   
   "Cryptogram-A-Day Book" is filled with puzzles that, when solved, reveal an interesting quotation, as well as the person known for creating it. It's arranged by date - with one puzzle for each day of the year. It appears that the author's intention was that us cryptogram-lovers would do just 1 of these puzzles per day... However, for me, I just dig right in, and do as many as my spirit moves me to do.
   
   The only reason I gave this book 4 starts instead of 5 is because there are no hints in the back - all you get is the full solution. And, if you're anything like me, your eyes wander and you wind up seeing more of the answer than you wanted. I've become accustomed to the books that offer you 1 or 2 different hints that you can use if you become stuck, before having to go to the full solution.
   
   Overall, I think this is a good cryptogram book, and I really like the fact that many of the solutions are quotes that are inspiring, or lead one to ponder. So, if you enjoy cryptograms, I recommend you give this book a try.



5. I have been doing cryptoquotes for awhile now and this book was great! I am someone who does not like any hints. I keep going until I get it! I recommend this book to anyone who is an avid "cryptoquoter"

5 comments about Easy Italian Crossword Puzzles (Language - Italian).

1. The front cover of the book shows a particular kind of crossword puzzle, and that's what I had expected to buy. Those puzzles are fun because you can learn new words and, with increasingly more letters available, even guess a new word. Easy Italian Crossword Puzzles does not use this type.
   
   What does the book do? Each word puzzle concentrates on a topic: weather, color, time, animals, etc. The early puzzles give words in English and you need to find the Italian word, or vice versa. Later puzzles give the word in Italian and ask for a synonym in Italian. At the end of the book, you will find answers to all puzzles. The whole book is more of a vocabulary quiz than a puzzle. I was disappointed.



2. In learning a language, sometimes you just want to step away from the lesson books and the tapes and do something a little different. Why not crossword puzzles?
   I agree with the other reviewer who felt that the puzzles in this book were a little too organized into "themes". It would have been more challenging to have constructed them like ordinary puzzles. In fact, it would have been even better if a variety of word puzzles were included. However, the book is useful for learning vocabulary and the puzzles are small enough that they can be completed fairly quickly.
   Not perfect, but a helpful tool.



3. As a crosswords addict, I found this book to be an invaluable way to learn new Italian vocabulary. I did one of these crosswords every morning. There's something like thirty puzzles, so it's great way to give your Italian a boost in a month. Also, the puzzles are sorted from easiest to hardest and they have different types such as Italian clue, English answer; English clue, Italian answer; and completely in Italian.



4. As noted, the cover is misleading. Each puzzle is about 80% black space. The relatively few words in each puzzle intersect in one or two letters, so that the crossed words provide little help in finding an answer.



5. I am really enjoying this little book of Italian crossword puzzles. I like the way it's arranged in order of English/Italian puzzles, then Italian/English, and finally straight Italian. It's great for learning new vocabulary grouped by topic.

5 comments about 3D Game Programming All in One, Second Edition.

1. My son really likes the book. He requested it on his xmas list, and was very pleased when he opened the package with the book inside. Thanks a million. P.B.



2. A COMPLAINT.
   
   The book is a treasure of information about the subject matter. However, the included CD if faulty. It doesn't install. T tried to install it on two different machine in vain. I emailed Thomson Course Technology about this matter and I received no response.
   
   THE PREDICAMENT OF OVERSEAS BUYERS.
   
   Althaugh overseas buyers pay the full amount including postage, they are oftern ignored when it comes to faulty products.
   
   AMAZON Authority should consider overseas buyers' helplessness in this situation.
   
   I need the CD badly and I am willing to pay any amount for a sound one.
   
   Thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter.
   
   Regards,
   
   Fawzy Youssef.



3. This book is actually a text book for my school. I saw a lot of complaints from other people on how much it talks about the Torque engine. Personally I think that is a good thing at 150 the Torque engine is something that most people who want to get into creating games could afford. The unreal engine costs thousands so it would be bad if it went into that or another engine like that, because most of us could not afford to get the engine and use what the book is teaching.



4. I am ready to give up on this book. I have the second edition, and can't imagine how others are making it work. The code sample for the very first project doesn't work. I eliminated typing errors by using the code provided on the CD, and it still doesn't work.
   There does not appear to be an errata website.
   Many items seem glossed over without any explanation given as to what they do.
   
   Given the price I paid ($65), and the name of the book, I would have expected more breadth, rather than a straight shot at building a FPS game. Running the final version of the end product, it is bad enough that I am now questioning the $150 that I spent on TGE. The physics of the vehicle are so poor, that it frequently gets into oscillation or total rollover on the smallest of obstacles, for example.
   
   I can't imagine using this tome to attempt to learn TGE. I hope that TGE is better than what is portrayed in this book. At least I didn't blow the $300 for TGEA!



5. Pros:
   Well written in an informal and easy to follow manner.
   
   Provides a good overview of the game development process with a focus on indies.
   
   Great intro. to the Torque game engine. Far superior to the online documentation from Torque.
   
   Cons:
   The title "3D Game Programming All in One" is terriblly inappropriate. This book is packed with 1000+ pages of good information but it should have been called something along the line of Introduction to Torque scripting, emphasis on the Intro part.
   
   Many detailed pages are spent on agonizingly basic tasks while more difficult subjects get glossed over, with the reader left spending a few hours inventing a step B cause the author magically went from A to C.
   
   More then once you'll be following one of his cookbook lessons and you are presented with an options menu with something like 50 options with unintuitive names and he tells you to just accept the defaults then moves on and never looks back. Maybe some tables explaining what those options do would be nice. This is "...All in One" right?
   
   Many many hours will be spent coping code from the book and then executing it in the torque game engine. However, the author has left dozens and dozens of errors in the book code, some of which are grossly inexcusable. Did the author not try his code after he typed it? Come on guy, cut and paste, I know you didn't crank out this tome using a pen.
   
   My biggest issue is that a lot of software, files and code comes with the book. But half the software does not match versions used in the book and many of the game files aren't what they are supposed to be. Code does not say what the book says it does, some image files are none existent and some of the animations are clearly works-in-progress just dumped onto the CD. The animation for an ogre dieing is actually an ogre being bounced across the screen and then dragged under the floor.
   
   I gave the book 3 stars because despite its many flaws I learned a lot and was able to resolve most issues at the expense of a few hours frustration. This book needs editing and lots of it. Also, I'll most likely buy his advanced version.

3 comments about d20 Menace Manual (d20 Campaigns: d20 Modern).

1. I bought this more on a whim but it has restarted my interest in d20 Modern. The book has three main sections which bear mentioning. First up is the critter book. No matter what kind of game you play critters are absolutely essential. There's something for virtually everyone in the first section. Alternity fans rejoice! You will old friends and foes in here as the Fraal return and are expanded slightly to make them available to UFO conspiracy enthusiasts as the enigmatic Greys. Weren are back as sasquatch with an interesting explanation on why their here. The weird winged humanoids have also returned to meet and in some cases become PCs. Next is a bunch of cardboard cut-outs for a given GM to play with in stock NPCs and they even gave some sample teams to possible use. Finally there is a faction book with real and made up organizations. Among the intriguing new comers are an extreme terrorist organization loosely based on Al-Qaeda and a bunch of would be world conquerors (Cooobraaaa! Whoops, wrong game ;)) as well as the American agencies CIA and FBI. Anyone interested in more adversaries and possible allies of any d20 Modern type campaign would be well served by this book. There are suggestions for some of the groups in the suggested campaigns or if you want to design your own campaign, this gives some more options, something that is always warranted.



2. Got the book, read it, and now it sits on my game-shelf for the rest of eternity. Waste of time and resources!!!



3. I thought this was a well-written, well-made book. It has a ton of information on so many different organizations that you should never run out of bad guys, though it would be fun to try. In addition to the info on the many organizations it has it's own monster manual. It would be nice to have picture of all the different baddies but there are only so many pages I guess. All in all I think this book would be very helpful to most campaigns.

3 comments about This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities.

1. I received an advanced reading copy of this book through LibraryThing recently. While I am most definitely NOT a gamer (except for the occasional game of Cake Mania 2), I was looking forward to reading this book since both of my sons are gamers. In fact, I would classify my older son as a hard-core gamer. I have always wanted someone to explain to me what was so wonderful about these games, and I was hoping this book would enlighten me. Well, it didn't satisfy my curiosity very much. The conclusion that the author comes to is that basically, games are there to alleviate boredom, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the first part of the book, I detected a very defensive attitude, as if Rossignol wanted to justify his life's passion with gaming. Towards the end of the book, there is some discussion about some practical applications of games, including education and the defense industry; I was hoping to see more of this. I learned a great deal about the gaming culture in South Korea, which I actually found interesting. I also learned way more about the game EVE than I ever, ever wanted to know. I understand that there are some social aspects to these games and that it takes a certain level of intelligence to play them, but I still don't get it! While I did learn some things in this book, for the uninitiated gamer, it was tedious reading at times.



2. Right from the start, you can tell that Jim is a talented writer who succeeds in vividly describing the settings and the people he encounters in his travels to the three major cities in the book (London, Seoul, and Reykjavik). The stories he tells serve to illustrate his points and provide a vivid backdrop for his personal quest to better understand the hobby, passion, or obsession that we call gaming, a major theme of the text.
   
   While the book is written in a way that's meant to initiate the non-gamer into the world of gaming, I think that it's gamers themselves (and particularly those of us who dissect, analyze, think, and write about games) who will most benefit from considering the issues he examines and asking ourselves the questions he raises. The most compelling question that the book tackles, in my opinion, is whether or not we're wasting our time with the thousands upon thousands of hours that we sink into gaming. It's certainly a question I've asked myself on numerous occasions.
   
   The book is an odd mix of travel narrative, journal, and philosophical examination on the purpose of gaming (which it readily admits to being, if you glance at the inside cover). While the individual personal examples and discussions of gaming sub-culture are well-written, the parts I enjoyed the most were the sections towards the end of each chapter and the book's concluding chapter, "The Window," wherein Rossignol ties everything together and discusses the relevance of the medium from a number of different angles.
   
   There are times when the book seems like it's trying to pull in too many directions at once or tackle too many topics in rapid succession, and much of the discussion of EVE Online in the later chapters seems unnecessarily detailed and ponderous. Even for someone like me, who lives and breathes this stuff, there's only so much I care to read about the intricacies of one specific, complicated game whose purpose in the text is to illustrate a larger point about player creativity.
   
   Still, This Gaming Life is well worth reading for anyone interested in what it means to be a gamer and what purpose gaming might have in both a personal and larger social context. The international examples provide some much-needed multicultural perspective on the phenomenon of the universal attraction of electronic entertainment, the personal stories give insight and encouragement for those interested in striking out into the games industry themselves, and the philosophical meanderings of a traveling lifelong gamer scratch the surface of issues that could easily be spun off into entire books or academic dissertations in their own right. If you're serious about games and the culture of gaming, the read is worth the price of admission.



3. This book is a basic overview of different aspects of gaming. It discusses some cultural differences in the way Westerners game vs. those from the East (with the possible general exception of Japan). It is interesting to note the difference not only in game style preferences, but the way gamers are perceived in Western vs. South Korean culture, specifically.
   
   The author also examines what he calls emergent gaming. These are methods of gaming and actions within the game that the designers did not anticipate. He goes on, at length, about the evolution of EVE Online and how it is the players that have largely driven that change rather than developers. He also waxes philosophical when it comes to what games mean in a larger context. Are games merely a waste of time and energy better spent on other endeavors or do they ultimately represent something else? This discussion is not very deep, but he does give reference to some other works that delve deeper into this debate.
   
   Besides the few annoying grammatical errors, the tone is kept fairly light, yet you can tell Jim Rossignol is passionate about his current chosen focus in life. There is some good information here, but it really is best for someone who is looking for a PC-gaming biased overview of what gaming has been, is in its current state, and could possibly be. Console gaming is touched upon, but not discussed in any great detail. Those looking for minute detail and insights into the gaming industry won't find them here. But he does point the way to others who discuss his more philosophical points at length. This Gaming Life is certainly worth a read if you're interested in gaming no matter what level you wish to explore, unless you've already delved into this field.

No comments about WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 Signature Series Guide.

1 comments about Poker Wizards: Wizdom from the World's Top No-Limit Hold'em Poker Players.

1. Love this book. If you play, whether it's a friendly or a smoker, this book can help your game with its insights from the players with the biggest stones. Those guys (gender agnostic) are legends and yet seemingly accessible - if only. Dunnett has done it. Even though I recommend it, I'm tempted to keep to myself and use it for the potential ill-gotten gains from less informed competitors.