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Rating: 
Summary: Good but no PacMan!
Review: Andrew said this book was good so i am gonne get it too!! I hope it DOESN'T taste like chicken either...
Rating: 
Summary: Negative to positive review
Review: I had previously added a negative review base on my inability to run the code samples. As it turns out, the samples only run on Visual Studio 2003. If you have Visual Studio 2002, you won't be able to run the code. Unless of course, you use the executable.
In any case, I have not yet read the book. I just posted this comment because I wan unable to delete my previous comments. I can only update them.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't make this your first choice
Review: I've studied from tons of books over the years and this is my least favourite ever. The subject matter is presented in what I feel is mostly a haphazard way. The author uses games to illustrate concepts about vb.net. However, if you wanted to search the book for a particular subject for reference, it would be hard to do. It does sort of build on topics, but not like a book should. The worst problem is that the first program, a cheesy dice rolling program is packed with coding errors. The errors weren't bad, but they were numerous. I did find the coding example interesting, but it did seem more like random mixture of stuff than an organized explanation. I guess my biggest complaint is that I shouldn't have to debug the code examples in the book this much. Overall, I am unhappy with the book and I'll not buy another APress book again. It seems to me that this book suffered from bad editing and rushed production.
Rating:
Summary: Good concept, poor execution.
Review: If you want to learn some game programming, its pretty good. If you want to learn .NET its not so good. I use and enjoy VB.NET and thought this would be a good way to learn game programming. It does a pretty good job of introducing that. It would be better if it had some exercises for you to try on your own, rather than just copying the book programs, thats the only way to learn something is to do it yourself. On the positive side, if you are an experienced programmer, this book does a good job of teaching VB.NET and introducing games. If you want to learn VB.NET from scratch this book is not for you. It doesn't teach you how to get started with Visual Studio, let alone VB. If you don't already know some programming, you won't be able to follow it. Also, it has many typos and errors that break the code examples. If you are an experienced programmer, they are easy to spot. If not, you can use the downloaded code to fix them, but save yourself the aggravation, get a book that is really geared toward beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled
Review: The reason I'm giving this book a low score is because I don't think it does what it promises. First of all, it's very hard to learn ANY programming language(including Basic) through game programming. If you know VB.NET well, go ahead and give it a try. I, however, am a newbie to game programming, and after reading through the first few chapters and finding the text confusing and having to frequently read lines over and over because it doesn't explain itself in a fasion it should to it's target audience, still don't know how to program a game.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Approach to Teaching OOP Concepts
Review: This book is good for serious programmers because it teaches solid OOP principals in complete small packages. The book is also good for student learning because the subject matter appeals to them. I found the approach of the book to be refreshing. It had you build your first game in a straight forward but not OOP manner. In my opinion it would be how most novice programmers would build the game. Nothing was resuable. Then it shows you how to rebuild the same application by making classes so the code is reusable. I was extrememly pleases with the book, but would have liked to seen the code snipet be complete or have a CD with the code sample included.
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