Rating: 
Summary: Very Poor
Review: I was very unhappy with this book. If you know nothing and want to know more nothing this is for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Warning! There are better tutorials
Review: If you want to learn to program game's' then dont buy this book
but if your just into simcity like games then maybe check it out.
And another thing, why is this book called game programing in
Visual Basic with DirectX? why isnt it mentioned we have to buy
other things in order to make the program in the book? Also, I've
seen better tutorials on the internet better than this book, I am just
sad that i've spent my money on this. =(
i hope this review helps you...
Rating: 
Summary: worth its weight in gold
Review: In the context of showing you how to make a simulation game, this book shows you how to load meshes from outside sources like 3dsmax. What's more it's done simply and clearly explained. It also shows how to make your game scriptable and is a very good example of how to make your code object orientated. Every thing talked about in the book while shown in the use of a simulation game would apply to any other type of game with a little creative thinking. This book is a must, the price seals the deal.However, it's not without its faults. One thing to remember though is that you will need to refer to the cd, because the author cut the size of the book by only showing the relevant portions of the code to the topic in the book not the whole picture. However since the code makes use of a debug log you can't run the code from off a cd. You need to copy it to a space on your hard drive first and then open it in vb and run it. Lastly the modeling package featured in the book seems to be another me too product.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Start!!!!
Review: This book is way ahead of other VB/DirectX offerings in that it offers a complete 3D application, deals with DirectX head on instead of a mere appendix, and gives you a CD full of goodies to get started including the DirectX 8.1 SDK, Microsoft's Speech 5.1 SDK, and demos of trueSpace, Photoshop, and Paint Shop Pro. Complete source code is included as well so you don't have to go digging through a Web site for it. And unlike most authors, this one answers e-mail questions from readers, too--a true rarity in the field. You won't be left hanging with this book! Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Not even worth the [price]...
Review: Usually I wait for others to review a book before making my purchase. Well, this time I didn't and wish that I did. I expected a lot more from this book than what was offered. Since there are few VB game programming books available I try to check each one out. I choose this book purely on the authors name. Instead of exploring different aspects of game programming with VB and Direct X, the entire book is about one game, a sim game based on Sim City. If I would have known this from the start I wouldn't have bought it. So if you are looking to learn how to incorporate Direct X into your VB games look elsewhere. If you want to learn how to program a Sim game then check this book out.
Rating:
Summary: Too superficial
Review: Very dissapointed. The help file of the SDK (8.0) makes a better job at explaining the principles. I found the book evasive as far as DirectX is concerned. Third part tools discussion make the essence of the book. May be of some interest about writing a game, but *almost* irrelevant about DirectX. You don't want consider this book if you already know some very basic DirectX stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but better with add-ons.
Review: Wayne S. Freeze, Windows Game Programming with Visual Basic and DirectX (Que, 2002) First and foremost, a warning. Freeze's book, despite its publication date, deals exclusively in Visual Basic 6. If you're using VB.NET, a lot of this stuff is going to cause you to wonder what on earth Freeze is on about. I strongly suggest reading Keith Sink's DirectX 8 and Visual Basic Development in conjunction with this, and asking a lot of questions on a lot of VB.NET tech support mailing lists. (Microsoft's documentation on how to go from VB6-VB.NET with DirectX is not nonexistent, but it is such that nonexistent would have been better.) Given that .NET had already been in prerelease for over a year by this book's publication, one would think that, at the very least, the publisher would have made it very plain somewhere on the cover that the book dealt in a technology that's not compatible with the next generation of the language. An unforgivable oversight, especially if you happen to spend the full retail price for a copy of this book. That aside, Freeze's book is quite good in the way it introduces the reader to the new, and largely esoteric, combination of Visual Basic and DirectX (the latter technology was exclusively the realm of C++ programmers until 2001, when DX8 began to include VB wrappers). He's not afraid to use repetition to get his point across, and he does so in a laid-back atmosphere that's quite different from what one sees in most how-to programming manuals. Freeze teaches the VB/DX intersection through the programming of a SimCity-style games called SwimMall, which is in and of itself at least worth a discounted copy of the book. Needless to say it's not a commercial-quality game, as one would expect from a single person programming such a thing while under the pressure of a book deadline. But the routines and ideas therein are just the thing to spark the imaginations of novice game programmers; no matter what genre a person is working in, there are certainly routines here that will help a programmer out in various ways. Much of this code is easily ported to any other type of game framework. Very good stuff. Just remember the admonition in the first paragraph if you're working with .NET and haven't used VB before. (Actually, I recommend Sink in conjunction with this book anyway; the atmospheres of the two are a pleasant mesh, and when you can't find a niggling piece of information you need in one, the other is sure to have it.) *** ½
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written.
Review: What a disappointment. I was expecting a lot more from this book. The chapters have no logical flow based on game development. The author seems to have little or no experience writing or designing a game (before you complain, I have 7 retail titles published), and merely wrote this book to add to his collection of previous works. The whole thing comes across as a business application, masquerading as a game. Very few of the samples included on the CD-ROM actually work well, and can be crashed easily. Performance of the code is lackluster, with frame rates 1/10th of what is capable with VB and DirectX. Readers would be better off gaining knowledge from several excellent web sites devoted to DirectX development with Visual Basic.
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