“Earth will never be the same.” That’s thetagline for Halo 2. With $78 million in pre-sales, it couldbe called the most anticipated videogame of the year.

Now that the release has come and gone, many fans are feelingcheated.

Why is that?

The game officially went on sale at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. By noonof the same day, many gamers had already beaten it.

Not only that, the gaming community seems to be unanimous in itsappraisal of Halo 2’s ending — it sucked.

What does this have to do with anything?

Halo 2 is only one of many recent big releases inentertainment to be a major disappointment.

Film distributors, and now game producers it seems, are pullingout all the stops in an effort to hype their product as much aspossible. Now, this seems perfectly logical. After all,they’re trying to sell their product.

But how much is too much?

Think of all the movies you’ve seen massively promotedlately. How many of them sucked?

Let’s make a quick list of films that didn’t live upto the hype.

• StarWars Episode 1

• StarWars Episode 2

• Matrix: Reloaded

• Matrix: Revolutions

• The Hulk

The list goes on and on … and on.

It would seem, for the most part, massive promotion MEANS thatthe product is going to suck.

When did the entertainment industry shift its focus from tellinga good story to just making money?

Fact is, from the beginning, the entertainment industry has beenprimarily concerned with making money. Ed Board thinks now may bethe time to stop. Of course that’s not possible, but ascaling back of promotions would certainly be a welcome change.

We have seen big release after big release come and go with allthis hype built up by publicists and production companies. Ed Boardsays “down with hype!”