programming

The author is very good in explaining the core concepts and desings to build and maintain a 2D video game in Java. The explanations are very clear and the code is very clean too. The concepts that are demonstrated are rock solid to produce high quality games.

The cons about this books is that many essential concepts in game devevelopment are not covered such as artigicial intelligence, sound/music and tools to build game content (levels...)

Also I don't think it is a good idea to teach the Java language in this book. I think this subjet should be left to many other good books.

Finally, the author focuses too much on the aspect of online gaming. All the concepts are based on Applets and when the time comes to create a game for the desktop there are differences on how to build the framework.

I you are looking for game programming in Java you will learn very good and essential concepts with this book but be aware that it is incomplete.

What I cannot believe is how unfair recent reviews of this book have been. If you're a beginner hobbyist, then maybe this book isn't for you?
Let's mention instance modelling, advanced collision detection, triple-buffered animation, quad trees, hardware acceleration and framerate syncing.
Maybe this book is ideal for a Mathematician interested in game development using Java. But as a newbie Java developer that just did part of a training diploma, in one word: Terrific!

I just got an invaluable introduction to linked lists and hash trees - and even better, their applications in todays professional game programming industry.
Just please don't mention Vector Geometry for now (lol).
You also get to look at implementing abstract classes -- that surely sets the programming standard? And there's a bonus for people that either do C++ or have had a long look at it. There's great looking boxes that delineate Java limitations and advantages by comparison.

On the down side, a few examples don't seem to compile straight away and probably need to be revised -- mostly the networking section which seems outdated.
Based on this I'd give this book four stars only, except for wanting to boost this books terrible review ratings!

I personally really really wish there was a home page for the included professional level Java engine - where it could be maintained and updated.
Also it could be fully documented, so newbies like me could just use the whole thing more easily.
But it was worth it even if only for the custom controls library -- Swing is SLOW! (note for Sun developers)

I think that without having a full grasp of everything that's covered (and its a lot) I'm now better equipped than ever to get those Java game applets up and running.
And now i can realistically gauge myself against the real professionals. Oh, and I loved the style too.

I shan't discourage!!

This book is so awful it deffies description. The authors do not follow any basic Java standards and the book if rife with C++ comments, being that the author is really a C++ programmer and trying his best to help C++ programmers get into Java. Much of the book is chewwed up in aside "boxes" filled with little "gems" of interest to C++ programmers. Who cares! The book is titled "JAVA 2 GAME PROGRAMMING"!

This book covers extremely, extremely basic Java 1.2 (the current SDK from SUN is gonna be 1.5 in a month if they release on time I beleive), and ALOT of the given source code WILL NOT COMPILE. Plan on hours of fighting with, rewriting and debugging the source code from the book if you want to see practically ANYTHING that even resembles workable java code. This I find rather funny actually, being that you need to have legitmate Java experience to even be able to debug the given source code in this "begginers" book! About halfway through this one I became completely feed-up with rewriting the code from the book, opting instead to return it while I could still receive a refund. A complete waste of time this one is.