Wii For Dummies New Edition For Dummies Computers

Wii For Dummies New Edition For Dummies Computers

Just got a Nintendo Wii game console? Thinking about one? Wii offers video games, exercise tools, the opportunity to create a cool Mii character, and lot of other entertainment options. Wii For Dummies shows you how to get the most from this fun family game system.

This book shows you how to get physical with Wii Sports, turn game time into family time, make exercise fun with Wii Fit, and discover Wii’s hidden talents, like displaying photos and browsing the Web. You’ll learn how to:

• Hook up the Wii to your TV, home entertainment setup, or high-speed Internet connection
• Get familiar with Wii’s unique controllers and learn to use the Nunchuk, Balance Board, Wheel, and Zapper
• Explore the Wii Channels where you can shop for new games, play games online, check the news, and even watch videos
• Create Mii avatars you can share, enter in contests, and use in games
• Learn to use your whole body as a controller and get fit while you play
• Identify the best games for parties, family events, nostalgia buffs, and even non-gamers
• Build your skill at Wii tennis, golf, baseball, bowling, and boxing
• Use the Wii Message Board and full-featured Web browser

With tips on choosing games, hot Wii Web sites, how to enjoy photos and slideshows on your Wii, and ways to prevent damage to (and from) Wii remotes, Wii For Dummies makes your new high-tech toy more fun than ever.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars The Best Book You’d Never Think You’d Need
Wii for Dummies might seem a bit redundant at first glance. The Wii has hit critical mass at this point, with grandparents, parents and siblings alike all waggling joyfully with Nintendo’s latest masterpiece. With this new system seemingly designed with the technolgically impaired, casual non-gamer in mind, could it possibly warrant its own For Dummies entry?

Short answer: Yes! While Nintendo has made the Wii relatively simple for pick up and play, Wii for Dummies is all about helping you to take the next step. How do make this thing connect to my home network? What accessories are available, and do I really NEED them? What’s a Mii and why should I care? This book is all about helping you max out your experience.

Even the seasoned gamer should be interested in this book. Orland includes an interesting (if brief) section about the history of Nintendo, the Wii, and how it all came to be that is very reminiscent of the excellent Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life by Chris Kohler. Additionally, the final section includes some game buying advice, including a selection of downloadable games, and suggestions on games with which to reel in friends and non-gamers alike.

5 Stars Getting to know your Wii
If you’ve purchased a Wii this book is just what you need to get to know what your Wii is all about. The Perfect book and highly recommended.

1 Star Not as good as expected
I thought this book would be much more helpful. It was not as good as i thought it might be.

5 Stars Extremely Informative
Kyle’s “Wii for Dummies” is a very detailed resource for those looking to get or just starting out with their Wii. Even if you already own one, this book is good to have: it points out all the features your console has. From setup, to creataing Mii’s, contacting friends and using all the included ‘Channels’, “Wii for Dummies” has step by step instructions for everything.

It’s NOT a dry book by any means. There are tips, reminders and info boxes throughout each chapter as well as coverage on Wii Sports, Wii Fit and has game recommendations (even explanations of each genre) for those just stepping into games for the first time. Lots to explore by reading this book.

5 Stars Not Just For Dummies
At first, I thought this book was only for people who bought the Wii as their first video game console. This book is definitely aimed at them and includes great information for first time users. There are chapters on how to set up the system (with troubleshooting tips), how to use the controller, and how to choose games, all written in simple, easy to follow instructions. The chapters assume the reader doesn’t have any video game knowledge and holds their hands through processes such as reading the ESRB ratings and reading reviews of new games.

However, even with the writing for a new user, there are still nuggets and useful information for more experienced readers. For instance, the section on Channels in the Wii is extremely helpful, uncovering information I didn’t know about the console. The list of websites specifically optimized for the Wii and setting up a specific Channel for Wii Fit was information I didn’t know and found really fun. The book also includes suggestions for games on both the Virtual Console and Wii for all types of play: party, solo, and in between.

I think the most useful parts of the book for both new and experienced players are the suggested resources that are included in each section. Links to websites that cover kid-friendly games, links to mainstream video game review sites, and tips to find out new information on the console are invaluable for the book and teaches the reader where to find information the book can’t cover. It’s definitely a good primer about how to become informed about video gaming in general.

I found Wii for Dummies to be chuck full of useful information that both applies to the Wii and gaming in general. The writer does a great job of writing simple to follow instructions that are entertaining and witty. Sometimes I read a section I already knew just to see his funny take on it. I definitely would recommend the book for users who just got the Wii and don’t know exactly what to do with it or as a gift for a relative or friend who is not a gamer. For more experienced players, I would still recommend it for all the great content on using all of unexplored features of the console.

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The Race for a New Game Machine Creating the Chips Inside the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3

The Race for a New Game Machine Creating the Chips Inside the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Beautiful insight
Well… I wanted to know people behind the PS3 and XBox 360 for quite some time. But I was surprised to find (by virtue of this book) that the same set of people created the microprocessors for both the consoles.

The book is a good read.

I recommend it to anyone who is interested in this stuff.

1 Star Worst-written book I’ve read in Years
The subject matter of this book is fascinating. Having followed the development of the Power PC chips for years, I was looking forward to some insight into the world behind IBM’s microprocessor development.

This book is poor on so many levels, yet I will focus on one. The writing. Written in first-person as if it were a dime-store detective novel (not a compliment), I had to suffer through puerile descriptions of how the “author” (he had a writer “help” him): “growled through gritted teeth”, and “slapped my hand on the table”. Do people really talk like this? No, they don’t. And they really shouldn’t write like this either.

My best guess is that the book was only about 50 pages after the first draft, and they were faced with a choice:

1. Beef up the book with fascinating technical details or interviews with industry folks.

2. Pad this sloppy prose with fluff.

They went with option 2. It really reads like they were getting paid by the word. Shame on the editor. Stuff like this should never make it to print.

Shame is, there are several *really* good books on technology and video games: “Game Over”, “The Last Quarter”, “The Cuckoo’s Egg”, etc. The author even mentions “The Soul of a New Machine” in the preface. You’d think having read that book they would be ashamed to publish the tripe they produced.

1 Star It was too limited in scope
The author spoke of the situation like it was truly grand in scope and size and yet, you only get a single persons point of view. I only got about 2/3 of the way through the book before giving up on it. Truly disappointing. A very interesting subject that basically boiled down to one person flaunting their accomplishments and talking about parties.

2 Stars Smoke salesman
The possible approaches in writing a book like this could have been 2: a technical focus or a business-management focus.

The author fails in both respects, skipping over the technical details and showing little knowledge of business aspects.

The book runs for more than 200 pages of which 190 are “smoke” , filled with poor analogies, boring details about meals and parties, useless corporate jargon.

It makes appear as if designing a complex chip is just a matter of some project manager meetings, avoiding any specific or large-scale electronic manufacturing process description.

Also, why the author doesn’t include any drawing in the book ?

After all an “architect” , both civil or electronic, should have used them heavily to help during the project.

2 Stars no style, no substance…disappointing
i had high expectations of this book, but in trying to appeal to a wider market, the authors watered down any substance.

*focused on trivial interpersonal details instead of engineering problems

*many analogies designed to make book more accessible for non-technical folks were too simplistic and sometimes even wrong

*manic dual-author style often jumps illogically between criticism and praise for the same person’s behavior within pages

*lots of repetition of the same ideas

*business statistics about volumes/sales were implicitly only north american, which is ridiculous considering the global nature of the products discussed

*breezed over the radical PS3 hardware redesign that caused sony to launch a full year later than microsoft

*didn’t discuss the hot-button topic of unprecedented 360 hardware failures, despite being written so long after-the-fact

*virtually ignored nintendo, despite the wii cpu also being an IBM chip

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Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World Official Strategy Guide Official Strategy Guides Bradygames

Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World Official Strategy Guide Official Strategy Guides Bradygames

BradyGames’ Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World Official Strategy Guide includes the following:

• A comprehensive walkthrough of the entire game.
• DETAILED MAPS: The locations of events, battles, items, and more are pinpointed
• BESTIARY: In-depth bestiary including over 200 unique monsters with tips on how to capture them
• CHARACTER AND SIDE QUESTS: Tactics to lead players through all extra quests found in the game

Platform: Wii

Genre: Role-Playing Game

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars You Have To Have One To Play The Game.
The only way anyone can play alot of this game is to have the Strategy Guide, without it there would be no way you can do it.

1 Star Pretty. Useless. Incomplete.
We bought this guide expecting that it contained useful information about the monster evolution. Or that it contained useful synthesizing tips, or more information about what the different effects symbols meant, or that it contained more detailed spell/artes/skill information than the instruction booklet that came with the game, etc. It proved to contain just as much information about the mechanics of the game as the instruction booklet, plus a walkthrough. A real waste. The Monster guide had all of the monsters, but wasn’t arranged in any useful order, and didn’t contain anything except their basic stats. Nothing about monster evolution paths, recruitment tips, probable locales, etc. Don’t waste your money on this (very) incomplete guide. We returned it the next day for a refund, and found more complete guides on the web for free.

5 Stars Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the Ne World Strategy Guide
Used quite a bit, but not essential, good walk through and made game more enjoyable. Game, by the way is very good. Highly reccommend it!

4 Stars The book is helpful
I recommend this book if you have the game. It helps you by telling strategies on how to beat the bosses. The only thing you have to figure out on your on is passing the quests. There is no maps in the book.

2 Stars Almost Useless
The Tales series usually have some fairly big games. While Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is a spinoff of sorts, it is still a pretty immense game. One has to wonder why the guide doesn’t really do any justice whatsoever for the game.

All the preliminary stuff isn’t so bad. Getting through the basics is almost something a guide has to try to fail at. Bradygames doesn’t falter at all. If you’re having a bit of trouble understanding the game’s mechanics, this section can help you out. Soon, however, this is where a lot of the helpfulness goes away.

The walkthrough, the meat and potatoes of any strategy guide is where the first big issue is. There’s a walkthrough that is, for the most part informative. You’ll get from Point A to Point B fairly easily as there’s actually quite a bit of information. The walkthrough does the step by step thing BradyGAMES has done for nearly a decade now. Where the walkthrough fails however, is providing the player with any sort of detailed maps for the area whatsoever. Not only that, but most boss strategies aren’t that great either. The boss strategies being useless isn’t that big of a deal, but the lack of maps really is. The screenshots are often really big and blurry as well. On the whole, the walkthrough gets you through the game, but it is definitely not going to help you master it by any means.

Another really big problem with the guide is that there’s a total lack of optional content here. There’s really nothing about sidequests or anything, and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is quite a big game that has quite a few secrets. The guide doesn’t even mention most of them. It’s rather disappointing in that respect. There is data on the monsters you can capture at least, but even that lacks a lot of substance. There is data on the monsters you’ll fight. There are also several appendices with info on items, weapons and the like.

Unfortunately, the guide is useful for one thing and one thing only: Getting you through the story. Other than that this guide isn’t going to help you with much of anything. Much of the content such as extras is completely forgotten about and there are no maps. The screenshots are also very blurry.

In the end, it’s hard to recommend this guide. The walkthrough, while informative isn’t going to be of that much help considering that Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is a fairly straightforward game. On the other hand, it is rarely, if ever, worth purchasing a strategy guide for an RPG for the walkthrough alone. Without adequate tips for training monsters, secrets and sidequests, the guide is about as useful for conquering the game as the instruction manual the game came with.

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The Official Pok mon Handbook

The Official Pok mon Handbook

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Good book but not as recent as kids wanted
This book covers the original Pokemon and not the many that have been created since the beginning. It’s great for what it is, but my kids would have liked one that had more of the current critters in it.

4 Stars This is a good resource of information on the first 150 Pokemon, plus Mew and Togepi
The book opens with a write-up done from Professor Oak’s point of view that gives some background explanations about the Pokemon universe. This is followed by a section called “The Pokemon Journey,” which gives a brief explanation about the concept of the Pokemon creatures. Then, the book explains that each Pokemon is identified by at least one element and what colors identify what elements; when you look in the corner of each Pokemon page, you can tell what type it is by the color the corner is. Then, the book explains how someone becomes a Pokemon trainer, how a Pokemon journey begins, and there is a map of the Kanto region. The next section explains the basics of Pokemon battles, and the last introductory page explains how to read each entry in the handbook.

The Pokemon are listed in numerical order, and each Pokemon has the following information included in its listing: a pronunciation of its name, its element, its height, its weight, its main techniques, other techniques it can use, what element or elements the Pokemon is good against, what element or elements that Pokemon is weak against, the type of evolution it is, and what level it evolves at. Each Pokemon also has a paragraph write-up to explain it. Some of the Pokemon also have a “Pokedex Pick,” which provides a piece of trivia about that particular Pokemon. The following Pokemon have a “Pokedex Pick”: Bulbasaur, Charmeleon, Charizard, Blastoise, Caterpie, Butterfree, Ekans, Pikachu, Raichu, Sandslash, Female Nidoran, Nidorino, Clefairy, Meowth, Persian, Psyduck, Golduck, Poliwag, Tentacool, Ponyta, Muk, Haunter, Gengar, Onix, Krabby, Exeggcute, Hitmonlee, Lickitung, Koffing, Chansey, Tangela, Starmie, Mr. Mime, Electabuzz, Pinsir, Lapras, Aerodactyl, Articuno, and Moltres.

There is a list of the top ten ways to care about your Pokemon, as well as some frequently asked questions. “Secrets of the Gym Leaders” features write-ups on Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, Erika, Sabrina, Koga, Blaine, and Giovanni. The next section features the four Elite trainers of the Indigo Plateau: Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, and Lance. This is followed by trainer trivia about Ash Ketchum, Gary Oak, Jessie, James, Professor Oak, Nurse Joy, and Officer Jenny. There is also a sneak preview of Togepi, and a checklist of all the Pokemon in the book. The index in the back lists the Pokemon in alphabetical order, and what page each Pokemon appears on. The book also comes with a poster of all the Pokemon featured in the book.

From the design of the book, as well as the way the book is written, it’s obvious that children are the intended audience for the book. However, this book is chock full of valuable information, so adults shouldn’t shy away from The Official Pokemon Handbook. I would recommend this book to Pokemon fans and collectors, both young and old.

5 Stars pokeman
this is a very good book. My grandson has been able to read this. loves this

4 Stars Pokemon Handbook Rocks
Bought this for my 8 year old grandson who is a big Pokemon fan. He phoned me to say how much he’s enjoying this book.

5 Stars need it for the pokemon fan
I ordered this book for my son who is 4 years old.

This has colorful pictures of pokemon with description.

If you are a pokemon fan, you need this.

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Goblins Dont Play Video Games The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids 37

Goblins Dont Play Video Games The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids 37

Gordan Goble, the new computer teacher at the Bailey School, has a gray complexion, an evil laugh, and makes the lights flicker on and off. Is he a real-live goblin?

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars booklover
my son loves this series it’s put the fun back in reading for him!!!!!!

5 Stars Goblins!
There are some weird grownups in Bailey City. But could the new computer teacher at school really be a tricky goblin? THE BAILEY SCHOOL ARE GOING TO FIND OUT!

4 Stars Goblins Don’t Play Video Games
If you are into mysteries you would like this book. It is full of adventures and kids getting into mischief. It was great book to read.

5 Stars a book you should put in your game system
this book is a good book to read if you are into the eletronic world.

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