I like pin-up girls as much as the next guy, but I can tell when my, uh, chain is being yanked. Which is clearly the case with Eidos recruiting a couple of trashy and be-implanted booth babes to recreate the look of classy pin-up chicks from the 40s. The Bombshell Beauties website to promote Battlestations: Pacific lets you freeze frame and zoom a slightly creepy photoshoot with your choice of girl and costume. Then dress up your snapshot with clip art and slap it on the nose of a vintage airplane. At which point you're supposed to mail it to your friends, who Eidos hopes will be convinced to buy Battlestations: Pacific.

I'm not falling for it. And I watched through every one of their creepy photoshoots just to be sure. A few times over in the case of the brunette. You know, to be sure.

I was going to write that I wonder how effective this sort of crass marketing is when it comes to a fairly cerebral action/strategy game like Battlestations: Pacific. But then I realized I answered my own question by virtue of the fact that I'm writing about it. So there you go.