Rating: 
Summary: An excellent, well-presented look into AI
Review: For so long, the computer gaming industry was concerned with making their products look and sound better - and for good reason. There have been many instructional books and articles that have paced the advances in graphics and sound technology. Game AI, however, has only recently come into the primary focus as the next frontier of game advancement and the resources available to AI programmers have been few and far between. After spending time on game AI message boards, I have seen the endless torrent of people asking the simplest questions about game AI in general. I have also seen those who have a grasp of the basic tools but are unsure how to apply them in their situation. Also present are those who are looking for a better way to model larger problems but are faced with a wide array of academic, non-practical research and theories. "AI Game Development" caters to all of those people... from those that are learning the basics up through those that want to apply just that extra "nudge" to their projects. It fills a valuable need in the game development community to provide that "go to" tome to allow even the beginner to make steps in adding true interactive gameplay into his or her products. So often people find a tool and look for a way to use it in their game. They fail to stand back and look at their problem and then select the correct tool, or combination of tools, for the job. Mr. Champandard has supplied the reader with reasonable examples and, more importantly, ways of thinking about and dissecting their problem so as to choose that correct tool. Rather than a disjointed collection of tips and tricks, this book provides a smooth, overarching treatment of the concepts behind the AI. It explains why and what rather than how. Alex has a disciplined, outlined style that breaks down a very complex, multi-faceted subject into separate but connected stepping stones. Each one can be mentally processed alone, but always with the awareness that is a part of the whole series. The reader is not bombarded with pages of code, but is supplied with the reasons to make the code that way. All in all, "AI Game Development" is an excellent piece of work from a very knowledgeable source and should be on the shelf of every game AI programmer. After all, as AI programmers, we ARE trying to build enemies, not targets!
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, well-presented look into AI
Review: For so long, the computer gaming industry was concerned with making their products look and sound better - and for good reason. There have been many instructional books and articles that have paced the advances in graphics and sound technology. Game AI, however, has only recently come into the primary focus as the next frontier of game advancement and the resources available to AI programmers have been few and far between. After spending time on game AI message boards, I have seen the endless torrent of people asking the simplest questions about game AI in general. I have also seen those who have a grasp of the basic tools but are unsure how to apply them in their situation. Also present are those who are looking for a better way to model larger problems but are faced with a wide array of academic, non-practical research and theories. "AI Game Development" caters to all of those people... from those that are learning the basics up through those that want to apply just that extra "nudge" to their projects. It fills a valuable need in the game development community to provide that "go to" tome to allow even the beginner to make steps in adding true interactive gameplay into his or her products. So often people find a tool and look for a way to use it in their game. They fail to stand back and look at their problem and then select the correct tool, or combination of tools, for the job. Mr. Champandard has supplied the reader with reasonable examples and, more importantly, ways of thinking about and dissecting their problem so as to choose that correct tool. Rather than a disjointed collection of tips and tricks, this book provides a smooth, overarching treatment of the concepts behind the AI. It explains why and what rather than how. Alex has a disciplined, outlined style that breaks down a very complex, multi-faceted subject into separate but connected stepping stones. Each one can be mentally processed alone, but always with the awareness that is a part of the whole series. The reader is not bombarded with pages of code, but is supplied with the reasons to make the code that way. All in all, "AI Game Development" is an excellent piece of work from a very knowledgeable source and should be on the shelf of every game AI programmer. After all, as AI programmers, we ARE trying to build enemies, not targets!
Rating: 
Summary: Title should be: shallow review of AI techniques
Review: Looking at the table of contents you might think: "Hey, finally
a book that can help me get started with fascinating techniques
like finite state machines, neural networks, fuzzy logic, emotional systems, and even game physics!". Doesn't it sound a bit too good to be true? It is possible to give a good introduction to one or two of these topics (for an example look at the very good "AI Techniques for Game Programming" by Matt Buckland) and who knows, maybe to all of them too, but certainly NOT in this book. This is only a shallow discussion of
these topics, with NO USE OF CODE. Just a series of "AI Buzzwords" put together hoping make a few bucks at the expense of unsuspecting readers. Buy american beer, get yourself a handheld PC, eat at fast foods.. all better ways to waste your money than this book...
Rating:
Summary: Bridging the Gap
Review: Since even random Italians from Chivari can use their "freedom of speech" to post defamatory review about books they obviously don't own, it seems only right that I should use my right of response as the author. The book does come with source code, part of an ongoing open source project in game AI. The SDK with the book has in fact hundreds of C++ files demonstrating each technique in practice. Links to the website are given almost every chapter, so a genuine reader would hardly miss them. You can even get the framework supporting the book freely over at http://AiGameDev.com/. As for shallow reviews of AI techniques, I guess you'd have to ignore the fact that the book is recommended reading - if not required - in already 4 Universitiy courses on Games & AI in the UK and America. One of my main focuses when writing the book was to bridge the gap between theory and practice, academia and industry. The book covers a lot of ground, but also leaves the reader room to experiment and try out the ideas in practice. You'll get as much out of the book as you put into it - so reading it might be a good start for Riccardo. A tutorial series entitled 'Exercises in Game AI Programming' has just been launched based on the book. You can find it over at http://AiGameDev.com/ also. Decide for yourself! Alex Champandard
Rating:
Summary: Bridging the Gap
Review: Since even random Italians from Chivari can use their "freedom of speech" to post defamatory review about books they obviously don't own, it seems only right that I should use my right of response as the author. The book does come with source code, part of an ongoing open source project in game AI. The SDK with the book has in fact hundreds of C++ files demonstrating each technique in practice. Links to the website are given almost every chapter, so a genuine reader would hardly miss them. You can even get the framework supporting the book freely over at http://AiGameDev.com/. As for shallow reviews of AI techniques, I guess you'd have to ignore the fact that the book is recommended reading - if not required - in already 4 Universitiy courses on Games & AI in the UK and America. One of my main focuses when writing the book was to bridge the gap between theory and practice, academia and industry. The book covers a lot of ground, but also leaves the reader room to experiment and try out the ideas in practice. You'll get as much out of the book as you put into it - so reading it might be a good start for Riccardo. A tutorial series entitled 'Exercises in Game AI Programming' has just been launched based on the book. You can find it over at http://AiGameDev.com/ also. Decide for yourself! Alex Champandard
Rating:
Summary: Practical Fun
Review: This book is a treat. The first few chapters introduce the topic and setup the rest of the book very well. But part 2 is where the fun starts. It explains how to create a bot moving around with different AI techniques. I was quite pleased to find that the code wasn't printed, it's on the website. That's usually a good way to pad the book out. The C++ code is very well commented, and the demo bots have kept me busy for hours already. I have a few minor complaints though. It does take a bit of time to setup the game ready for the AI demos, and the SDK can get a bit complex at times. Having a CD would have made it a bit easier rather than downloading the files. Anyway, I've learnt a lot already, and there's still a lot more for me to take in. At this price, I'd recommend the book to any programmer. Edutainment at its best!
Rating:
Summary: Poorly Written Original Content
Review: This book is the only book of it's kind with the Game AI content in the world at this point (late May 2004). So if youre interested in Game AI it's the only book you can get, however it is poorly written, has mistakes, typos, and insufficent description of the FEAR platform that is required for you to be familiar with if you want to understand the content of the book thoroughly. This view is maintained by my peers, tutors and lecturers in the University i go to which is currently using this book as a guide to our game devalopment unit (because its the only one of its kind). I can't help but feel that the book was kinda rushed and was not properly/thoroughly proofed read by the editor. I am confident that a lower priced 2nd edition with all the mistakes taken out would be really appropriate and appreciated by game AI interested people. If not some one else should become the 2nd person in the world to write a book on this subject: Game AI. The author should be a little self critical and make a 2nd edition and make us all happy instead of living in denial and giving him self 5 stars. Dont see how he can improve on him self without being self critical. We are all greatful here in my University for his initiative in inventing the first book on game ai but were also all very frustrated when strugling to asimilate it's content. Also a great deal of the SOURCE CODE did NOT WORK. Some of them did, but a large fraction of them DID NOT work as expected from the book. Granted some chapters that covered basic principles were easy to follow but some intermediate chapters really made me frustrated as i re-read them again and again to try and understand a concept but continue to fail unless i label certain sentences as mistakes that were worded wrongly or backward etc. I was going to rate this book 2 stars because i felt that some chapters were well written and covered the content well, but since so many people already gave it an unrealistic score of 5 stars (perhaps a conspiracy by the author's friends) i have decided to compensate for this and lower my rating to 1 star. Hopefully this will balance out the scoring to a fair and realistic level that it deserves. David Ong, Australia
Rating: 
Summary: More of a discussion
Review: This is a bizarre book in that I don't feel it contains much practical information. In essence it is a discussion and overview of many different AI approaches, and the situations one faces when designing AI. In that respect I guess it would be useful to someone who is attempting to write their first AI, or is interested in the subject. The book certainly does a decent job of giving this broad overview but it is not much use for narrowing down to specifics. To be blunt, if you have a problem with your AI system you won't find the answer here. There is very little code (all I saw was pseudocode) in the book. The author approaches all the topics from a "let's think about this on a large scale" approach. I won't detract from that approach - it certainly has its use - but perhaps the title could be more clear about this focus on theory, rather than on practice. Potential buyers should certainly be aware of this fact.
Rating:
Summary: One of a Kind
Review: This is truly a unique book, there is no other text available at the moment which covers the material that Alex covers in this book. If you're looking for an introduction to a lot of the major concepts in AI, then this is the book for you. As for the people saying the code is useless, its more likely that your programming skills are lacking. I used Alex's FEAR SDK to write an agent for use in my own research, and the product was again unique. Alex is not only a talented writer and AI expert, but also an excellent programmer. If you are interested in seeing something before you buy this book, check out ai-depot.net, also having read Alex's research paper for his masters I can confidently say that Alex is one of THE authority on these subjects! So check out the book already!
Rating:
Summary: One of a Kind
Review: This is truly a unique book, there is no other text available at the moment which covers the material that Alex covers in this book. If you're looking for an introduction to a lot of the major concepts in AI, then this is the book for you. As for the people saying the code is useless, its more likely that your programming skills are lacking. I used Alex's FEAR SDK to write an agent for use in my own research, and the product was again unique. Alex is not only a talented writer and AI expert, but also an excellent programmer. If you are interested in seeing something before you buy this book, check out ai-depot.net, also having read Alex's research paper for his masters I can confidently say that Alex is one of THE authority on these subjects! So check out the book already!
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