1 comments about Stronghold Legends Official Strategy Guide.

1. Useless for beginners because it won't walk you through. Alot of experienced RTS players like me got stuck with Chapter 6 Victory King Arthur'campaign for a while until I figured it out on my own. Check it out, go to the said campaign in the book and you'll see he didn't say much. I doubt the author really played this game or if he does it's on the easy mode.
   It's not any better than the instructions booklet that comes with the game.

1 comments about Starlancer Official Strategies and Secrets: Official Strategies and Secrets (Strategies & Secrets).

1. No mission based game is truly fun without the mission-by-mission manual to go along with it. Otherwise the game would be really confusing and disorienting. The artwork is excellent and the reference guides give you something to study while not in the game. Sybex rules.

No comments about Television Game Show Hosts: Biographies of 32 Stars.

2 comments about 2003 Video Game Price Guide.

1. this book rocks! i've always wondered what the value of my video game collection was... and now i know! this book has caused me to start collecting again and now i know what fair prices are to pay for video games. i won't be ripped off again!



2. As a list of what carts were made, it's ok. As a price guide this book is complete garbage. The prices it lists are guaranteed to get you laughed at and chased out of every video game store in America, if not the entire world.

2 comments about Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour (Prima's Official Strategy Guide).

1. This guide does exactly what a strategy guide should do: It tells you how to play the game. Of course, the game is somewhat open ended within each mission. I often found myself going different routes than the guide suggests, but even then, the suggestions made by the book are valuable.

   Note that this covers both the base game and the expansion, which makes it a good value. Unless you already had the book for the base game... ;-)




2. Typical of Prima's guides this book contains all the "how to" suggestions of completing the game. Part I of the book focusses on the original "Generals" which gives good hints including an overall map of each mission. This section would be a 5 out of 5.

   Part II is where it seems to fall apart. Part II has a nice guide on new abilities but as far as a guide for each of the fifteen missions, it divides the mission with a step by step of how to go through the mission with little windows into what you can expect to see along the way. The one large omission is that it doesn't have an overall map for each mission or any mission in "Zero Hour" which I've found is probably the biggest help in these guide books. With the overall map, the reader/player can get an overall perspective of where the dangers lie and how best to avoid them. This is especially helpful if you want to attempt to complete the mission by a different method. Why this was included for the Part I "Generals" missions but not the Part II "Zero Hour" missions is a mystery.

   For a book on the original "Generals" this is a 5 out of 5. For a guide on "Zero Hour" it would probably be more of a 3 out of 5. Frankly I'm disappointed with this supposed "Zero Hour" guide for the reason above.

3 comments about Mega Man? Battle Network 5 Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames)).

1. Every single strategy guide for this game has been unbeleivably helpful in helping me complete the game with full satisfaction. This game lists every single chip, all the souls, maps to the roads of the 'net, and much more. This guide is most needed in getting the full satisfaction from the game.



2. I dont need it beacuse i can just look at the FAQS at gamespot or gameFAQS its the same thing exept it doesnt have pictures but i still bought it ^_^ its really good i like the pictures and stuff and it tells you stuff about both . for ppl that dont want to spend money look at FAQS. i used the FAQS for only a little until magnetman beacuse i dont like to get online much .



3. I found this book to be really helpful and the delivery speed was great

No comments about Tenchu?: Fatal Shadows Official Strategy Guide (Bradygames Take Your Games Further).

2 comments about Sid Meier's Civilization II: The Official Strategy Guide (Secrets of the Games Series.).

1. Definately worthwhile. One of the best books for Civ II I have seen. Some really good info. Strategies for the intermediate player to the beginner. Not only a good strategy guide but a good referance as well.



2. This book is the absolute best Civ 2 book. Bar none. It is also the best Civ 2 reference book available. Do not even bother to buy other Civ 2 books; I have read them all and most are a waste of your money, esp. the worthless book by Jason Rich.

   This book has excellent suggestions for beginners and intermediates, and is invaluable for experts as a reference. Many of the details of the game are simply not found anywhere in the game's original documentation, but are explained very well in this book. From this excellently formatted wealth of information, one can deduce many advanced strategies of the game.

   There are a few minor errors which advanced players will eventually notice (eg, page 309 concerning subversion), but these are very subtle and probably won't be noticed by most beginners and intermediate players.

   This book is easily worth the price. If you like Civ 2 (or wish to play and/or understand it better), this is the book for you. This is the first book you should buy after you get the Civ 2 game.

5 comments about Artificial Intelligence For Computer Games: An Introduction.

1. Artificial Intelligence For Computer Games by John David Funge is a solid, straightforward instructional text of basic artificial intelligence theory, the principles from which it derives, and how it is practically applied to program challenging and creative NPC behavior in popular computer games. Black-and-white diagrams and boolean logic symbols help drive the precepts home, though Artificial Intelligence For Computer Games does not contain any computer code per se - this is a manual of basic techniques that can generalize to any programming system. An absolute must-read for anyone striving to program or refine their own games.



2. A total rip off! This skimpy booklet reads like a thesis and has only scarce and laughable code snippets. 35 dollars for this? You must be kidding! If interested in a decent, hands on game AI programming book try "Programming Game AI by Example" by Mat Buckland.



3. Well the reviewer above who said the book was worth 5 bucks totally missed the point of the book. This was not the typical 400-plus-page book chock full of code examples that could be dropped into an app and used as code modules. This book is specifically for those who would like a relatively quick, comprehensive overview of a lot of the main areas that computer game AI involves. None are gone into extremely deeply, but they don't need to be - that's not the point of the book.
   
   The book did seem short when I first saw it, but there's a surprising amount of content here. For me it was a perfect intro to game AI and a great book to start with for anyone who would like to learn more about the subject.



4. The first thing I noticed when I got it up was how thin it was. It reminded me of the small reference O'reilly books. Props for having a hardcover though. I think that it is really called "Artificial Intelligence for Computer Game An Introduction", but you would only know that by seeing it on the first page as that isn't on the cover, side or back.
   
   Before getting into the book I have to mention the code. You get your first glimpse of code on page seventeen where a class header is shown. The class name is tgGameState. Any guess what "tg" stands for? Neither do I. He tries to save on space by having functions with partial words like "inline getNumCharacters()", but the follows it with a pointless comment // Get the number of characters. In appendix B (Programming) it says that code is written to be as easy to understand as possible and is therefore not that efficient. If he had wanted to go for readability he would have expanded the function names, removed the pointless comment, and ditched all the inlines and not of even mentioned the constructor, deconstructor (which aren't defined in the book anyway) etc. It would have been much better to use sudo code.
   
   Onto the actual book. My mention of the reference O'reilly books wasn't just to point out the size. This book really does feel like a jumping off point for AI in computer games. topics are briefly mentioned, but never really gone into depth and to make it sound complicated greek symbols are used when showing a formula. I would have appreciated five or six footnotes per pages telling where to get more information, but most of the time there wasn't (but there was a lot in the back). The first two chapters where more of a crash course in game design. So by the time I was on chapter three and on page 33 you can tell that was nervous that i was 1/3 through the book and really hadn't gotten into any sort of real AI stuff. but it picks up from there. There are a lot of hints for how to integrate AI into games. For example a Non-player controller (NPC) could have an arrow drawn on its chest (where it thinks the player is) and other visuals indicating its internal state. One neat idea was that your NPC could have several decision making units that could be swapped out. When really close to the player the most CPU intensive one would be used and when far away in the locked room the "stand still" one could be used. Perception, Mood, Remembering, Searching, some basic physics were all touched upon. In chapter 7 it gets very close to mentioning/talking about genetic algorithms, but alas it was not to be.
   
   The title really should have had "an introduction" in it. I expected it to be bigger with more in-depth explanations that didn't leave me hanging. On the plus side I found out the name of the orc on the cover is named "Fluffy". For an easy read that is fairly high level on this topic this book isn't that bad, but you probably want to compliment it will others.



5. I had a lot of fun reading this book - it's short ( compared to those giant 700-800 page books ) but covers a lot of very interesting concepts with clear and simple examples. The concepts presented include the most recent developments in Game AI and academic AI which is nice. The author describes the algorithms and ideas used in various aspects of Game AI design by guiding the reader through a simple game. The writing is clear and concise. Overall, a joy to read.

2 comments about Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front (Prima's Official Strategy Guide).

1. this is not needed to finish the game the game should be purchased thugh the guide sahuld not

   the game is fun but dont get the guide i give to

   cuz this chick, they took her pic, and focuse on her clevage, thats has GOT to be woth sumtin

   in-depthness 684,2984.9642 / 10

   desighn 10/10

   it is too hard too understaned because they use an bad picture format and i think the whole thing was made on ms.paint




2. i have been rejected 4 dis rvew again so,

   it is not worth the money TRUST ME if you need the guide then sell the game!

   indephness 100/10