– Customer review on 26/12/2009

Well I read all 460 pages, including appendices, of this book and I must say I was unimpressed.

The first thing I noticed was that Lee’s writing style makes you instantly want to go to sleep. I have two science degrees, so I’ve read a fair few text books, and this was one of the worst. The second was that the book is not riddled with gems of storytelling wisdom, contrary to what the intro, which I read online, was like. There’s maybe a fact maybe every ten or twenty pages. Thirdly, the book seems to be a composite of Lee’s lectures and tutorials. Powerpoint bulleted notes are strung together and, a lot of the time, he seems to be making appeals to an unseen audience of programmers on the relevance of the writer. The forth thing I noticed was that he assumes that the reader can write (dammit!). One of the reasons I bought the book was that I was looking for pointers on that too.

Lee is a believer that those who know nothing of history are doomed to repeat it. This is admirable. The catch is he goes on the pad the book out with copious background and exposition. It’s only in about 2-3 chapters (of 20) that he gets down to it.

His analysis and examples are sometimes dubious, go against your gut instinct and are actually factually wrong at times (Neverwinter Nights *does* allow PvP persistent worlds - anything more than a cursory look at the game (like actually playing it) would have told him this). I was left wondering whether he actually plays the games he goes on about?

Don’t get me wrong. The guy can write. His example story lead-ins to each section are great. The trouble is his text book writing style is a mixture of friendly and formal, and is akin to listening to your tedious, old great-uncle tell fart jokes.

If you are thinking about buying this book I would suggest two things: firstly, search around and see if there’s a 2nd edition of this book. There’s been quite a few excellent games out since this book was written in 2004, the success of World of Warcraft not withstanding. And more importantly second, see if you can track down any chapter except the excellent intro online (you should be able to find chapter 5 out there somewhere) to have a read of to get an idea of his writing style. Just because it didn’t appeal to me doesn’t mean it won’t appeal to anyone else.

Good Luck