Having just seen On The Spot Live at EA Los Angeles, I must say I am very impressed with the products EA will be putting out this holiday season. The show highlighted three of EA's holiday-season products: The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth (PC), Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault (PC) and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (Xbox, PS2, GameCube). All three games looked stunning and were packed to the gills with some very impressive features. I wanted to buy those games the minute the show ended.

But then I remembered Need For Speed Underground. I remembered how psyched I got for the game. I remember counting the days till I could get my hands on a copy. I remember watching the previews from E3 2003, spellbound at the thought of an underground street racing game with EA's dollars behind it. And I remember how, a week after first playing the game, I was left with an empty feeling of lack of fulfilment inside, the game having been revealed to be a shallow, cheap racer wrapped in Hollywood production values.

Now I don't want the three games highlighted in the show. Because I know they can't possibly be half as good as their producers hyped them to be.

I know what you're thinking... 'Duh!' But the fact is, we consumers are very susceptible to marketing and promotional efforts, whether we know it or not. Companies like EA spend millions of dollars finding out exactly how to push our buttons in just the right ways to get us to buy the games. And in the videogame industry, EA is the undisputed king of hype. Why else would Madden outsell ESPN NFL year after year, even on years where ESPN is the better game?

So I got bit. They got me, hook, line and sinker. But as the realization dawned on me that I had been had, that NFSU was not the game I had been sold (if you get my meaning), I resolved never to be had by EA again.

Now I'll be Microsoft's *****. Halo 2, bring it on! 8)