Rating: 
Summary: Great book with lots of topics covered!
Review: For starters, i know when i see a quality game programming book..
(i own 27 different books and this is one of my best 3!). This book wont teach you how to program in a particular language, for that you need a whole series of other books (for a quick crashcourse on C++, i recommend "C++ Weekend Crash Course" by Stephen R. Davis).
What this book WILL teach you is windows basics, directx basics
then you move on to more advanced topics like:
Graphics, Sound, Input (including force feadback joysticks!!), game physics, game Artifical Intelegence, and lots more!!.... Plus some thing i didnt find in other books, a whole chapter on how to program old text based games, some of you may ask "why would i need to learn that?!" (my friends did!). If you played games like Quake2 or Alien vs. Predator, you may have noticed they have command based ingame consoles (~ key), which allows you to input commands which affect the game at runtime (like cheats.), learn this and you'll be able to make a commandline based engine for your game.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?? BUY THIS GREAT BOOK!! :-)
Rating:
Summary: exceeded my expectations
Review: I find few technical books out there that hits the mark of their intended audience, and fewer still that hooks the reader for most of the entire book.So, I was surprised that this book is both. It is intended for the complete novice to an intermediate developer who wants to learn more. Anybody who has no experience in game programming can pick up this book and be knowledgeable after reading it. You only need a knowledge of C to begin with. (Java, C++ or C# are fine too.) So now you think you got a good book even if you don't know anything about game programming? Well, that's not the whole of it. The author's writing style, sprinkled with jokes, is so smooth, it will help you get through even the toughest technical lessons in the book. I finished reading 3 chapters on COM and DirectX and I couldn't believe I understood them at first reading. ^_^ In short, this is the most worthwhile and easiest read I've had in a while from a technical book.
Rating:
Summary: Easiest programming book to read from cover to cover
Review: If game programming excites you, then you will be able read this entire book. It takes you step by step, and you never feel lost. Perfect code examples. Its funny at times. Simply Awesome
Rating:
Summary: Finally! A book that explains it all!
Review: I've been programming using C for several years, mostly for business, and have recently wanted to get into game programming. I wasn't sure where to start (at all), and there must be a few dozen books on the subject. After flipping through some of them, I came across this one-- I couldn't believe it!! All of the others just jump right in and throw tons of Directx and whatnot at you, seemingly assuming you already know all of the basics of Windows and game programming. Andre, however, starts off assuming you know almost nothing (except a bit of C, but there's even a C/C++ tutorial in the back!) and teaches you everything, from basic Windows programming, to setting up a game engine, game logic, all of the basic math you'd need to know, DirectX, bitmap graphics, artificial intelligence, sound, input....totally unreal. I didn't think you could get it all into one book!
The best part of the book as a whole is, Andre' goes into the gritty details and behind-the-scenes operations of every little step and programming function that goes into 2D and 3D video games. It seems that other game programming books just show you tons of code with brief explanations of what the code does-- very confusing. Andre, on the other hand, is clear and specific (and has a great sense of humor!)
So if you're looking for a game programming book that starts basic then digs way, way deep and covers ALL bases, this is the one for you!! Thanks again, Andre.
Rating:
Summary: This is THE book for the beginner
Review: I recently got this book and am thoroughly impressed with both the writing and the ease with which the technical content is explained and made accessible to a complete newbie to game programming such as myself. The techniques that LaMothe teaches throughout the book are extremely advanced, yet he breaks them down in a way that makes them easy to understand. The other reviews of this book do not AT ALL do it any justice. It seems to me from reading them that they have some sort of vendetta against LaMothe, who in my estimation is beyond brilliant with the amount of work he has published. Since they chose to hide their identities I would venture to guess that they are the minions of rival authors, perhaps even the rival authors themselves! Some sort of professional jealously I guess. (One reviewer asked why 3D appears in the title if no 3D coverage is given...a thorough check of the cover reveals nothing of the sort). At any rate, I will end this review on a positive note because that is the only thing I feel about this book. It is definitely worth the money and I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Delving Into New Topics
Review: About time someone wrote a book to cover new topics like the new DirectX 8 Graphics in plain english and AI, among other things.. Lamothe's book helped me take my programming beyond the PC to do the coolest things. I have never seen anyone explain AI in a game book, his coverage is extremely deep, and very practical, eventhough his coverage of esoteric topics like NNs is small, his coverage of fuzzy logic has got me thinking of completely new ways to do things. Great going, Andre Lamothe, keep things great books coming!! Shame on people who want to knock you for making money on a book. You deserve it, I for one would not have the attention span to write a 500+ page book. Finally, whoever the immature boyz that wrote those useless reviews are, its obvious you haven't read the book or looked at the CD, on the CD there are 2 complete 3D ebooks on Direct3D, and general 3D, the general 3D book is Excellent, the Direct3D book is fair, but all in all no where will you find this much information, and this much value.
Rating: 
Summary: Great starting point for PC game design
Review: If you're intersted in game programming on the PC, then this is definitely a good starting point. LaMothe is highly regarded in the industry as a talented writer, and this book proves that. LaMothe starts you off with some Win32 concepts and then leads you down the DirectX path (learn OpenGL as well if you care about portability). Many people gripe about this style of language, and I can understand why. English is an international language, yet not everyone will understand his use of colloquial American slang. But then again, if you play games, you've probably heard it all before....
Rating:
Summary: The place where difficult things become easy!
Review: The strong point of this book is that all is explained in a clean, easy to understand way and this rule is valid even for "nasty" concepts like fuzzy logic, polygon fill and math. Generally Computer science books are boring but I found myself awake at 4.00 AM reading it!
Rating:
Summary: Good coverage, great book.
Review: This book has good coverage of the various aspects you'll need to know about to get started with programming games. Easy to follow, and the author has a good clean sense of humor. I highly recommend this book. However, I do not recommend it for those who don't know how to program--learn at least one language first.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for a beginner
Review: I have read the book "Tricks of the Windows Game programming Gurus" by André LaMothe. I did not know anything about game development before buying this book. By reading this book I got a good idea about computer game development. Now I am working on my own 2D game engine. With out any hesitation I can say this is the best book on game programming for a BEGINNER. The book is about 2D games and some of the concepts in this book may be little out of date. But when you are a beginner what you need is good SOLID foundation, may not be the best technology. The book covers lots of areas of game development, all the samples are given clearly explained and they are easy to follow. And I specially like his writing style. I would recommend this book to anyone who is starting in game development.
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