5 comments about Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (2nd Edition) (Other Programming).

1. First of all I have a master of science degree in computer graphics. Second, Phillip Vaira, this is the only review that you wrote, and not only you but also many people who gave this book 5 stars, they only have one review. Therefore it is very suspicious whatevere you are writing. But apart from that, I can give you many good reasons why you should avoid Andre Lamothe's books:
   - this book is a recycle of his earlier books. with every new book he always recycles the same things
   his new book: Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus-Advanced 3D Graphics and Rasterization
   also uses directx 7.0 :lol: - i told you about recycling
   - his uses global variables all the time as optimization tehniques :lol:
   - he is a terrible programmer
   - his friends write fake reviews for him
   Phillip Vaira says: Best book for any graphics programmer
   are you kidding me ??? shut up man. you and all others like
   Daniel Smektala.
   trust me people all andre's books are terrible.
   I agree with you IQ160. Avoid andre lamothe. Man if you value anything you would wrote at least one good game in your 25 years of career. Do yourself a favour. Retire.



2. To offset all the reviews I saw, I rated this book 1 Star because it is simply outdated. Many of the examples don't work and the current version is DirectX 9.0c rather than the book's DirectX 7.0.
   
   It was probably once a good book but not now.
   
   As a beginner to DirectX I found it particularly hard to learn.



3. This is a decent introduction to how games are written. If you already have an understanding of windows programming and COM, you will get a lot from this book. The point of the book is to teach you how games are structured. As a software professional I am well versed in object-oriented design, design patterns, software methodologies, etc. I can read and make sense of the MSDN documentation on the latest version of DirectX. What I lack is domain knowledge of how to actually write a game. This book teaches you that!! This book takes all the information from other disciplines, calculus, physics, linear algebra, AI, software development, and shows you how to integrate them and build a game. A remarkable achievement. The code itself is not very good, but I can figure out how to write code. What I didn't know was how a game was structured.
   
   
   Part 1, chapters 1-4 cover windows programming. Most of this isn't very interesting. Except that it covers how a game is structured: 1. Initialization; 2. Enter game loop; 3. Retrieve Player Input; 4. Perform AI and Game Logic; 5. Render Next Frame; 6. Synchronize Display; 7. Loop; 8. Shutdown.
   
   Part2, Chapters 5-10 cover DirectX and 2D Fundamentals. This stuff is very interesting. Remember that algorithm you read on how to draw a line. Well you can see it here in action. Remember reading about collision detection. It's covered. You may want to look at other books with more detailed explanations, but this book shows that stuff in action.
   
   Part 3, Chapters 11-15 cover Hardcore Game Programming. This section shows how AI, and physics are involved. For a better understanding of AI, you may want to read Programming Game AI by Example by Mat Buckland. That book is inspiring. The last chapter puts it all together to actually make a simple asteroids game.
   
   In college I took a calculus class here, a physics class there. Each class was taught in a vacuum. It wasn't until I read this book that I saw how all the material I learned in college was interconnected. Sure you'll have to read a book on Physics, and another on AI, but this book shows you how to put them together and build a game.



4. I have just read all the Amazon reviews of this book going back three years, and one things stands out -- nobody recommends any other book to replace this one. That tells me a lot.
   
   I am a software developer who hasn't done any Windows interface programming in several years. During those years I've done some Java programming, but mostly low level C programming on Linux and embedded systems. Recently I needed to do a custom Windows interface for an embedded system, sort of a "dashboard" that would display data from the embedded system and allow the user to interact with it. I needed a quick refresher course on basic Windows programming, plus some ideas on how to do the custom controls I wanted (e.g. speedometers, scrolling line graphs, sliders, etc.). I went looking for the right book, and on the third try I picked up this one.
   
   For my purposes, this book is almost perfect. It covers the basics of Windows programming in the first three chapters, at exactly the level I needed, then moves quickly into Windows graphics programming. By the end of the first seven or eight chapters (about 400 pages, which took me two days to read), I was convinced that I should write my program like a simple 2d game, and I had enough information and explicit examples to do it. Within another three days, I had a working version of the dashboard.
   
   In my experience, most Windows programming books get lost in the bottomless pit of Microsoft gobbledygook. Once the author goes there, the reader is truly lost. This book is different. LaMothe has exactly the right attitude about it -- he cuts through the immense Windows overhead, shows exactly how to use a minimal set of necessary Windows functions, and encourages the developer to get on with creating their own software the way they want it to look and behave.
   
   It's true that this book is five years old, and uses an old version of DirectX. But programs built with that version are still supported by the latest DirectX runtime. Since the number of DirectX calls used by the end of Chapter 8 is quite small, it should be trivial to convert them to the latest version, which is my next project. If anyone knows of a better book, or an equivalent book that is current, please tell us about it.



5. This book provides excellent information for anyone who is looking to understand the fundamentals of game programming. Inside, the reader is taught how to make a fully-functional 2D Windows game, complete with graphics, audio, input, AI, and physics. The software in the book is created step-by-step from scratch, allowing the reader to see how everything works together. It uses DirectX 7.0, which is antiquated these days, but still provides a plethora of material for the reader to learn and expand upon.

2 comments about Catholic Word Games.

1. Anybody who comes from a Catholic background and who likes puzzles and word games will be thrilled with this book. The way the games focus on specific topics and themes makes it fun to test your knowlege (and memory)about Saints, Holy Days, stories from the Bible, and current Catholicism. With over 90 pages, the book has enough different kinds of puzzles to keep your interest over time. It is ideally suited for taking on a trip or carrying on errands.
   
   The content of all the puzzles is very well researched and references are taken from a Catholic version of the Bible. The games are challenging and they taught me a lot I didn't know, especially about the Bible and parts of Church history. I hope there will be another edition of this book coming soon. It makes a great gift for Catholics of any age.



2. I really enjoy Catholic puzzles, which are hard to find. I like this book, it has all kinds of puzzles and the puzzles contain things from both the old and new testaments. Thank you.

1 comments about Grasp of the Emerald Claw (Dungeon & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Eberron Setting Adventure).

1. Bruce R. Cordell wrote this adventure. I've liked everything written by Bruce R. Cordell (In fairness, there are a few pieces that I don't rave about). This piece is no exception.
   
   This is the conclusion of the story begun in The Forgotten Forge in the Eberron Campaign Setting and continued through Shadows of the Last War and Whispers of the Vampire's Blade. I haven't had the chance to read the last two adventures in this series (much less review them) so I'll review this as a stand-alone piece.
   
   In this series, the characters, working for house Cannith, are trying to assemble four schemas which together compose a powerful artifact called the Creation Pattern, a left over from the Age of Giants. A group called the Emerald Claw is also searching for these schema. So what keeps this from being a standard "MacGuffin" plot?
   
   The Creation Pattern is evil.
   
   After the inciting incident of The Grasp of the Emerald Claw, the enemy possesses all three of the known schema and begins searching for the fourth. The character's must be the first to get to the last schema. It's their only hope to stop the Emerald Claw (and perhaps find the first three pieces). No one realizes that Creation Pattern has plans of its own.
   
   The resulting adventure has the feel of the old pulp adventures. Picture King Solomon's Mines. More accurately, picture Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea meets The Heart of Darkness meets Congo (the novel, not that horrible Laura Linney movie). It is a fun, entertaining romp.
   One of the strengths of any Cordell adventure is the level of thought he puts into realistic detail. Ancient traps run out of power over time, character motivations and twists are well drawn and and the ecology of the dungeon holds together. If there is a creature too big to escape the room where it lives (and there is), you know how it got there, why it got there, and what it eats.
   
   My complaints with this module are minor. Some of the dialog or description clunk once in a while. An encounter or two feels forced., but this is nothing that should hamper anyone's enjoyment of the adventure, especially if the DM does his own descriptions instead of reading "boxed text."
   
   My biggest complaint has to do with the climax. This takes place in a interesting looking room. In effect, this is the opposite of the "Steam Factories" you see at the end of so many movies. You know the place. The hero and the villain end up grappling in a factory with no workers that seems to produce nothing but steam. This adds delicious threat to the fight scene, as long as the viewer doesn't think too much about why the factory is there or what it is doing.
   
   As I said, the climax of this adventure takes place in the opposite setting. The room has a purpose, it's filled with stuff, yet accept for the climactic fight, nothing here is dangerous. I think that Cordell had a wonderful opportunity for a rich and dangerous tactical environment and missed it. I would suggest to any DM running this adventure to make this room come to life, it shouldn't be hard to rationalize how. Your game will benefit from it greatly.
   
   I'd recommend this adventure to anyone playing in the Eberron setting. It might not be Cordell's crowning achievement but it's a good, solid module and a step above many of the adventures one sees these days.

3 comments about Medal of Honor: Airborne (Prima Official Game Guide).

1. A truely great Game! If only I could figure out why I can't keep the Broomhandle Mauser even after completing the mission?



2. CoD4 is by far the most visually realistic FPS thus far for us still playing Computer Games.
   The graphics and story line are excellent. I do not play mutiplayer , so I cannot review the wants or dislikes of mulfiplayers.
   What I can say is, if you like to play single this will not disapoint.



3. Remarkable free-form game that allows you to jump into any of a multiple of scenarios for any one operation.
   
   You can play a completely different game for the same operation simply by landing by parachute somewhere else on the visible area on the computer screen.
   
   One minus I would possibly give is that they don't allow the shooter to go into the prone position. When you're getting shot at, the tendency is to get your body as close to the ground as you can.
   
   Another is that when you think you have your own guys covering your back, you suddenly find yourself getting shot by the enemy coming at you from a direction you thought your guys were covering.
   
   All-in-all, this game is the best by far. I'll be looking forward to their next release.

5 comments about Images 4.

1. While the designs in this book provide for unlimited color and pattern combinations, many of the pages have spaces that are so tiny you'd have to use something as thin as a needle to stay inside the lines. A pencil or colored pencil sharpened lethally, barely. Markers or crayons, forget it! You've heard of large print editions? This one's microscopic.



2. If you use gel pens, the fine points....you will have no trouble at all with these patterns. They are absoulutely wonderful patterns. Yes, they are tiny lines, only for an adult, but like I said use the fine point gel pens and you will not have any trouble. Not to mention the gel pens rarely go through the paper. Enjoy!
   
   ROx



3. i bought this book early in the year and i found it amazing. truly so many possibilities within one page. the only thing i didnt like in this book was that on a few of the pages, the lines were super-tiny! maybe a gel pen could fit, but my markers, crayons, etc would go out of the lines by making the tiniest mark. overall great book for anyone 12 and up.



4. I love to colour but found these designs too small to look at, let alone colour in. You would have to use very sharp pencils or fine markers to enjoy this book. It's been taking up space on my shelf for years and has never been used.



5. My son, who is developmentally disabled, loves all of the Images books. He creates beautiful designs with all different colors of gel pens.

5 comments about Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors, Part 2.

1. I can't imagine how anyone could give anything less than 5 stars for these books, when you compare them to the rest of the chess market. This entire series is probably one of the greatest literary works in the history of chess.
   
   Not only are there fantastic games to play through, and an easy way for learning players to grasp the progression of chess from centuries ago to today, but these books also make fantastic reads even if you simply skip over all the annotated games.
   
   People like to criticize things because it makes them feel smart. These books are absolute gold and are so far above any similar work.



2. good book, good short bios, but analysis over my head



3. This is a very good book in an excellent series. Kasparov not only provides a thorough analysis of each player's style but also provides insight into the often neglected human aspects of chess. Not a book for beginners but for anyone seriously interested in chess a must read. I have only two adverse comments - Kasparov's sociopolitical comments add nothing to the book and will annoy some readers and he repeatedly uses the word tabiya without explaining it - even Russians of my acquaintance could not explain it to me - from context I think it is a term for a place where chess theory ends. My rating of 4 stars is not from any failing in the book but from a feeling one needs to be more seriously into chess than I am to really get full value from it.



4. This is Volume Two of the five-volume set of My Great Predecessors. I had to do a lot of shopping around to find each volume at a price I could afford, but if you are serious about developing an understanding of chess strategy, this set is an excellent resource. The books cover the history of great chessmasters, detailing many of their games. I don't start at page one and read through them sequentially; rather, I look up a particular strategy and lay out the game on my chessboard to move through it. One game usually leads to another, and I can spend hours going through the volumes this way. [NOTE that this review is authored by my 19-year-old son.]



5. I reviewed book 1 and book 4 of this series so i'll keep it short.
   
   This book was just as entertaining as the others. The games selected are great, and it's one of the few chess books where you look forward to reading the words, not just the games. The description of chess history, and the biographies of the players is captivating. Let me say too that I find the price very reasonable, considering some books half the size (and soft covered) are the same price or more.
   
   For entertainment purposes, this book ranks up there with the best I've ever read (I'd say "Bright Side of Chess" was the best ever).
   
   I'm not going to quarrel with the people who find analysis errors, but I say, it's irrelevant to someone looking at chess as enjoyment. If chess is your profession, maybe an error 8 moves deep in analysis is important to you. For this 2000 player, it isn't.
   
   As for the possibility that Kasparov didn't write it, like i wrote elsewhere, I don't care if his maid wrote it, the book is just as good. I don't see how a chessplayer can go without buying this series of books. The enjoyment of them is everlasting.
   
   I give it 5 stars, and I'd give it more if they had more

No comments about Descent: Altar of Despair Expansion (Descent).

2 comments about The Kakuro Challenge 2.

1. I need to thank my friend, Vivian Lee, who sent me as gifts both books, Kakuro Challenge 1 and Kakuro Challenge 2. I have already reviewed Kakuro Challenge 1, and Kakuro Challenge 2 is very similar . Once again one gets a generous helping of 200 kakuro puzzles, ranked in four categories of difficulty. The layouts and difficulty are about the same as in Challenge 1. As you follow your way through the puzzles you will soon find yourself back in old familiar places, such as the intersection of 7-in-3 block with a 4-in-2 block and the friendly attraction of an 11-in-4 block intersecting a 14-in-2 block.
   
   When Alastair comes out with a third kakuro challenge, let us hope that he corrects the last paragraph in the introduction, adds some more advanced hints about using subsets of numbers, and widens the range of puzzle layouts.



2. If Sudoku is boring you, this is the game you should try. I would advise you try an easier version before buying this one. Puzzles are clear, easy to read, large squares. One drawback in this book, however, is that there is either too little a margin or too much print on the edges, hampering writing notes. A minor problem.

5 comments about The Biggest Game in Town.

1. This book is a like a time-capsule that sheds light on the poker world before poker was on every channel and before Hold 'Em was the biggest game in town.
   A great look at one journalist's foray into the World Series of Poker, this is just a terrific book.
   He's a great writer, he captures the action clearly and with a 'you're in the game' point of view, and he makes it very exciting, yet still personal.
   A must read for all players.



2. This book is a time capsule of a very different Las Vegas. The Vegas of the late 70's and early 80's was centered around the downtown area, with none of the all-encompassing resorts on the Strip. This is the heyday of Binion's Horseshoe, when Benny Binion was holding court at the most over-the-top gambling paradise. Unlike other casinos, the Horseshoe had to limits on the bets it would accepts and played host to the most outrageous gamblers and bets of the time.
   
   All the greats of poker legend appear here--Johnny Moss and Nick the Greek Dandalos in their 1949 many-weeks-long marathon multi-million dollar game, Doyle Brunson, wacky cowboy gambler Amarillo Slim Preston, and formidable strategist Jack Strauss, among others.
   
   This is a must-read for any poker player. For a modern look inside the World Series of Poker, try James McManus's Positively Fifth Street.



3. "The Biggest Game in Town" is a book exploring the lead up to, the characters behind, and the culmination of, the 1981 World Series Of Poker. My main criticism of the book has little to do with the text itself. With poker becoming more mainstream, it was inevitable that the stakes would become higher, the stories would become crazier and this title and others like it would be left behind. As an example, the main prize in this book is several hundred thousand dollars. Compare this to the million dollar prize pools that are now being generated on an almost weekly basis and the reader can be forgiven for being dismissive about a first prize of "only" $375,000. The book recounts tales of businessmen being "stuck" for $50,000 but again compare that to the recent colossal struggle between Andy Beal and the Vegas professionals, where Beal initially gained the upper hand but eventually lost $10 million. Perhaps the one reason I would recommend the book is for its fleeting glance into the life of Stu Ungar, perhaps one of the greatest players to ever grace the felt. However, other than that I would say that there are many other poker titles I would recommend reading first, for example Nolan Dalla's "One of a Kind", a book that I suspect will stand the test of time.



4. This book is a must have for the serious poker library. While many of the poker players that Alvarez writes about in the book have now become household names, they were virtual unknowns (outside of their peers) when he wrote this book. This book really was groundbreaking in many ways.
   
   Reading this book will enable you to appreciate the mentality of the hi-limit players before poker became mainstream and commercialized. If you want to appreciate a little more about the history of the World Series of Poker, this is a good place to start. The event was not always the "circus" that it has become today.
   
   Alvarez has a nice writing style that is entertaining and easy to read. This is a quick read that you can get through in a few hours. I recommend it.



5. This is the first modern poker yarn by a legendary poker player and yes, literary critic. It seems half the UK poker players get their bonafides by how closely connected they are to Mr. Alvarez and his weekly game.
   
   This book is not to be missed. The previous reviewer holds against that it was written before the current poker boom (or is it poker bubble). It chronicles such minor figures as Stuey Ungar and the WSOP. What poker player cares about that?
   
   The latest poker memoir writers all pay tribute to this influential book. See what all the fuss is about.
   
   Far better than some of the current narratives written by really weak players. I want to name them, but I won't.

No comments about Universe at War: Earth Assault Official Strategy Guide (Bradygames Strategy Guides).