Book Review: XNA Game Studio 3.0

Having received a copy of Microsoft’s, Learn Programming Now! XNA Game Studio 3.0 (written by Rob Miles) I decided to try my hand at a book review. For all people who want to know how a game really works this is actually quite a good read. You do not have to be a programming genius to read this book, and it has been designed to provide a simple, yet fun learning experience.

Coming from a C++ (build everything yourself) background, I was not every enthusiastic about using XNA, thinking that it is just a dodgy cover to DirectX. But it is FAR from that, XNA is a brilliant tool, to build fun games quickly and easily.
The book is very much the same, it sets you up for a gentle ride into the XNA world, but before you know it you have fallen in love with a great programming tool. It is packed with detailed information describing everything you need to know to get started with XNA. From creating your first program, all the way up to multi-player networked games, there is even a bit of AI in there as well.

If you’re thinking that this is a code heavy book then you are quite wrong. Yes there is code on almost every second page, but Rob has only placed small snippets in so you don’t get lost in pages of black and white code. Every bit of code is explained very well, there were only a few times where I had to look back and think about what was explained.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised about how easy this book is to read, as I am no book worm at all. I cannot stand the dribble of university books, so this was a very comforting change. For anyone out there wanting to get into XNA programming, or just learning some of the trick on how to make games this is a great book.