For beginners only

I find it telling that the author's bio does not mention any games that he has worked on, because it quickly becomes apparent when reading it that this is *not* the advice of a seasoned developer, and I doubt that he has worked on anything more than very small demos. The book does cover a broad range of techniques and algorithms that are applicable to game programming, but it seems that the author's knowledge of these techniques is of an academic nature - gleaned from reading other books or newsgroups and a little dabbling in his spare time, not from professional game development. As such, it provides an introduction to quite a lot of topics, but as soon as it comes to adding more detail on implementation or practical advice, he suddenly becomes very vague and occasionally just plain wrong. Furthermore, his programming style is very academic (smells of unix) - not of the standard expected of a professional programmer.

The book may serve as a good warm-up for a student wishing to enter the industry, but for anybody with a year or two under their belt it is unlikely that they will find anything here to improve their skill set. This does not necessarily make it a bad book, as there are plenty of people out there who want to get into the industry and don't know where to start, and more in-depth books would probably create information overload. However, the book would have got a higher score if it had included the word "introduction" in the title somewhere. As it is pitched, as a reference book for the industry, it is a definite disappointment.

Other Reviews

• Reads like a textbook
• Very informative and concise
• For beginners only
• Disappointing. A lot of info, but sloppily done
• good for general information