3 comments about Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter: Sybex Official Strategies and Secrets.

1. This is the best guide in the gaming world.



2. This guide to Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is quite comprehensive. It contains countless details on items, spells, weapons and armor. The enemies you'll face are discussed. Locations of hidden treasures are revealed. For those gamers who are stuck, the guide offers detailed maps and walkthroughs for each area in the Heart of Winter expansion.

   Despite this wealth of information, I believe that this book does not provide a good value for gamers. First of all, 99% of these "secrets" and strategies can be found for free on the internet. Secondly, the game manuals (supplied with the game) are quite comprehensive themselves, meaning that this strategy guide is often just repeating information that has already been presented. But even more importantly, this book provides so much information as to take all the fun out of playing the game.

   Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter are very "linear" games. In other words, there is usually only one path to take. So the fun comes from building up your party of brave adventurers through hard-fought battles with terrible monsters. The manual deliberately leaves out all the tiny details on how best to group your party, or what weapons to use in different situations, leaving these things for the player to discover. Unfortunately, the manual reveals all this and more, and I feel that it leaves almost nothing for the player to discover on his/her own. I realize some people will consider my comments to be unfair criticism; after all, this is a strategy guide and it is *supposed* to reveal the techniques that work! Plus, the argument continues, you don't *have* to read those sections.

   To its credit, this strategy guide does provide some very useful suggestions on one of the most important parts of the game: creating your characters. You will live (or die!) with these characters for the rest of the game, and it is important to create a well-balanced party, not to mention one that you'll enjoy playing with. Here the guide really does shine, helping players choose from the many player types available. Yet once again, I must point out that this information is available for free on various internet fan sites.

   So if you are a novice gamer, and Heart of Winter has you stuck and frustrated -- and if you like holding a book in your lap -- then this guide will be a good purchase. But for everyone else, I'd suggest saving your money.




3. Manual was more than acceptable providing information enabling game play to be played to the fullest. Game suggestions were given to provide the most rewards and experience points.

5 comments about Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days/Book and Cd-Rom (Sams Teach Yourself).

1. i have had this book for a while and finally found a compiler that would compile all the sample code on the cd without errors.I found the compiler for $40.00 it's visual c++1.52 and came with another book i bought called "visual c++ now" by microsoft press.Just select ms-dos exectuable in project type and add the c code and lamothe's graphics library and your good to go. You'll get a lot more out of the book if you compile the programs in the book yourself and make modifications to the code etc. and this book covers a lot of the basics he leaves out of his newer windows game programming book.



2. This book is extremely out of date and should have been taken out of print years ago. The example code is useless unless you struggle to find a medieval compiler (probably only available on a 5 1/4 inch disk!). Now that I have more programming experience I still find that there is very little useful or up-to-date information in this book.

   Buy a newer book!!




3. I bought this book a while ago, but I still find it to be a very good book. Because this book covers a lof of gameprogramming topics such as: gfx, sound, ai, input, and even more. And there are also some advance topics such as multitasking, making your own ISR's, and that's very good to know. This book is great :)

   I would also like to recommend: "Black Art of 3D gameprogramming", and "Tricks of the gameprogramming gurus"




4. I bought this book in 1997, and read through it, even though I didn't have a working C compiler at the time. Even so, I read through it, and started to see what this book tried to teach. I didn't know a single function in C. About 2 years later, I got a compiler, and also know more about my computer in general. This book not only teaches you a lot about game programming, but also memory allocation, and it serves as a good intro to assembly language. If you are new in the game programming area, then this is a very good beginning book.

   Read it. It's worth it.




5. This is the book that inspired me to be a game programmer years back. I love this book. Its for dos, however dos is still fun. :)

   It may not have much use today, its still fun to read, because people who know dos programming, rox0r those who don't :P

5 comments about Microsoft Age of Empires Inside Moves: Inside Moves.

1. This book tells you in detail everything in a scenario you need to know to win. The book offers deeper insight on the historical aspects of the game, making it a different experience altogether.



2. Don't buy this book expecting alot. I could get much better tips for FREE from somebodys webpage.This book in my opinion is a waste of time if you plan to read it, and a waste of money if you plan to buy it. I hope if you read my review you will be smart enough not to buy this book.



3. I got this book free with the game, and it proved to be a waste of my time. Its only strong point is telling you how to beat the scenarios--and it isn't much fun to play them if you already know everything in them=no challenge or surprises. As far as strategy--WHAT strategy??? The only strategy I saw was "archers attack well in groups." As far as civilization strengths, you get that information in the tiny book that comes with the game anyway. Why pay money to read the same thing in more verbose language. If all you have is the information in this book, be prepared to be laughed at if you play anyone who has ANY experience with the game! Free web sites galore give you REAL information. I don't think this book was worth what I paid for it, which was nothing, since I got it for free. I'm ashamed of Microsoft for foisting off such worthless stuff when they could have made a great guide for a great game.



4. This book was awsome! Just the historical section was worth the 13 bucks. If you like Age of Empires fan, this is a must buy



5. I found the book very helpful. I am something of a newbie to the game. I have played AOE both 1 and 2 for only a couple of months but I found this book a real help in picking up some of the more subtle aspects of the game's dynamics.

   Compared to the Inside Moves Edition strategy guide for AOE 2, this one is far superior. Kent has obviously done quite a bit of work on figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of the various units. There are comparisons and contrasts and useful strategy suggestions. I particularly liked the discussions of the times required for particular units of one type to vanquish units of another type. The book would have been better for including yet MORE of this kind of information (e.g. How many stone age club men does it take to kill an Iron Age chariot archer? How does one recover from certain tactical mistakes and unit mismatches? What do you do when facing a catapult and you only have archers? etc.) The author goes into detail when explaining how he experimented using the scenario editor and explains this process to the user so that even the newbies can continue their educations beyond the book.

   The walkthroughs were readable, the instructions were clear and complete and the advice is good, given that the suggestions worked and behaved as indicated. The section on multi-player gaming may have been a bit light, but then, experience is definitely the best teacher in that realm and everyone has their own style. There may indeed be more extensive information on the various fan web sites, but as a tutorial, reference, and walkthough guide, I find the book useful and recommend it.

1 comments about Clive Barker's Undying: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. The guide completly describes all levels, secrets, fighting tactics and of course, the walktrough. If you really want to get the most out of the game, I sugest that you get the book fast.

No comments about Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death, Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

No comments about NINTENDO POWER Issue #2 September/October 1988.

1 comments about The Curse of Monkey Island: The Official Strategy Guide (Secrets of the Games Series.).

1. A great help for one of the best games ever created. Though, it does not help if you decide to play the "Mega Monkey" version of the game.

5 comments about Winning Chess Endings (Winning Chess).

1. This is a review of the early part of Winning Chess Endings by Yasser Seirawan. I just received Winning chess Enginds by Yasser Seirawan. I was eagerly anticipating this book, as the reviews were glowing about how great the explanations were, even if it didn't cover all important endgame theory compared to other texts. I didn't really care about coverage, as I know that's not really possible to cover all endgames and do it in the detail that a beginner requires. The main thing I expected and wanted from this book was getting deep understanding of different endgame types from what it did cover.
   
   I dissapointed with the first chapter, Basic Endgames, and with the beginning of chapter two, King and Pawn endings. Pandolfini's Endgame Course is much better on the two bishops endgame: Pandolfini shows you stage by stage how you can rustle the enemy king into the corner with two bishops. This approach of breaking the solution down into different stages is in my opinion much more helpful to the beginner than showing just one example from start to finish, which is what Seirawan does for the two bishops. Pandolfini's two bishops is superior to Seirawan's.
   
   Seirawan has a detailed discussion on knight and bishop vs. king, but again I prefer Pandolfini's approach of breaking down the ending from the final checkmate positions, then working backwards towards how to maneuver into the checkmate positions. Seirawan does have more text in knight and bishop compared to Pandolfini but I'm not sure it's more instructive in this case. So I'm neutral about knight and bishop with a nod toward prefering Pandolfini's organization.
   
   In the beginning of the King and Pawn seciton, Seirawan introduces the critical notion of distant opposition without ever defining it or telling how the reader can calculate distant opposition himself. Silman's "Reassess Your Chess" has an exemplary distant opposition discussion, with many detailed diagrams and wording showing exactly how to calculate (distant) opposition along with very detailed examples discussing distant oppostion and showing how one king can outflank another king. Seirawan just breezes through this topic, missing an important teaching opportunity, leaving the beginningn reader confused. Now I'm starting to get worried: is the rest of the book going to be this way, too? My concern is: how will I know if Seirawan misses more important teaching opportunities in those areas I'm not already very familiar with?
   
   In the section on the "tempo tester," (a pawn vs. pawn game Seirawan says is great for teaching tempo calculation), Seirawan gives no guidelines at all at how to approach playing it well or how the calculation should be done! He writes "I always beat my students at this game, white or black" without giving any insights into what his thinking is when he plays, or what techniques he uses, or just what kinds of calculation he does and just how to do the same yourself. I know that chess is all about doing the hard work yourself, but the point of buying chess books is to get direction and to prevent flailing around.
   
   Again, this is just a review of the initial section of the book. I am really hoping the rest is better. Flipping through the rest of the book, the discussions do *look* like they are very detailed, and I see general principles are outlined, but my confidence has been shaken a bit by the bad beginning. I'm rating it 3 stars for what I see in the remainder of the book. I'd give it 1 or 2 stars at most based on the beginning, and recommend strongly that readers look elsewhere for the basics (Pandolfini and Silman referenced above).



2. I can honestly say that I have never disliked a single book in the Winning Chess Series. Yasser Seirawan is a brilliant author. He combines his good writing skill and humor, his entertaining personality, his good chess skill, and his good teaching skill all into his winning chess series.
   
   Winning Chess Endings is a great book. After just a few hours of studying king and pawn endgames from this book, I felt like I had mastered it. My hypothesis was correct when I went to a big national tournament and was undefeated! 3 out of 5 of my games were king and pawn endgames, and I was able to effectively win them thanks to this book. I have yet to complete the other chapters, Queen and pawn endings, Rook endings, bishop endings, knight endings, Bishop vs. Knight, Rook vs. Minor pieces , and the rare and the perfect. My only complaint is that in the basic mates chapter, where he teaches you King and rook vs. King checkmates(which I already knew), King and Queen vs. king endgames(which I already knew), King and two bishops vs.kings endgames (which I didn't know before, but now do know because of this book) and King andn Bishop and Knight vs. King. That last one is a very difficult one, and I don't feel that Yasser Seirawan teaches it well.
   
   Overall this book was ideal for my level(USCF 1236) and probably good for ratings between 1000 and 1400.



3. Well Yaz gets around to the important endgame phase of chess which is so important. Yaz presents a nice work on the endgame which enables the reader to have an understanding of this phase of chess. It prepares the reader for more advanced works on the endgame (all of Yaz's books accomplish this feat). One needs to really give this book the going over since the concepts here in are very important. A strong International Master was quoated as saying 'Studying the endgame in chess is like cheating!' after reading this endgame book which was followed by some other more specialized (advanced) works I could not agree more!



4. This book is exelent! It will improve the game of anyone that plays on a level lower than a master. It is chalenging, yet at the same time fun and easy to read. He will teach you tactics like using stalemate as an offencive wepon when you are behind. The only person I would not recommend this book to is someone who is an absolute beginner simply because of it's extencive use of notation.
   Once again a great book form someone who is truely a chess player, not just a smooth talker.



5. This is an excellent book for novice and intermediate chess players!
   In this book, the author teaches the chess endgame principles by providing real-life game situations and summaries. For example, what to do when you have one bishop and a pawn Vs. the lone king?
   This is so far *the best book* I have seen for learning chess endgames.
   I have just started to learn chess and this book has been a great help.
   If you would like to learn strategy, tactics, and other aspects of a chess game, try his other books, they are very good too!!!

No comments about Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dawn of Destiny (Prima's Official Strategy Guide).

No comments about Dungeon Keeper Gold (Prima's Official Game Secrets).