An excellent book

My own 2 cents, briefly - it covers most aspects of the game development process in substantial detail, and presents it all in a clear, friendly, well-explained manner.
The sample code is excellent, and if you want to get developing RPGs with DirectX 8.0, this is an excellent start.
Speaking as mainly a VB/Dot Net developer, I’d have been keen to see code that used C#, etc, but there’s no denying that C++ is the most common language for DirectX development. If you’re not familiar with C++, you’ll need to familiarise yourself with its concepts to follow the code, but apart from that, what are you waiting for?

Best of the lot

I’ve brought a few of these huge door stops from this particular series, and this one is the best out of the lot up to the time this one was published. Gives you a taste of everything you need to get going, and is written with humor.

Of course Direct X9 is out now, so it’s a little past its sell by date now. But if you find it cheap somewhere still might be worth a look through.

Well worth the asking price!

This book covers the usual C++ refresher and how to setup directX and after that is quite excellent. Covering direct play in quite a lot of detail, which was my main reason for buying the book. It also covers applying 3d techniques to 2d games. This is a book i expect to get much use out of. Not for the absolute beginner!