SykoBeta: Feb 3, 2008

As we all know, when it comes to the Super Bowl it's all about ... the ads! Big audiences and big money is on the line so advertisers always go crazy to grab the attention of the largest worldwide television audience each year. This year's cavalcade of commercials began with Bud Light, with "everything you want in a beer." Now with the ability to breathe fire! Sure it's romantic when you can light the candles at the dinner table by blowing on them, not so much when your date has a cat and you're allergic. As in sneezing allergic. A short and funny commercial, Best bit is the disclaimer at the end done in typical fast-talk, "Ability to breathe fire no longer available in Bud Light."

Audi R8: "The Godfather"

We open on a beautiful mansion, panning into an elderly man sleeping. He sees something on his hands, rips the sheets back! The horror! It's the "head" of his luxury car! This homage to one of the most gruesome and classic scenes ever (horse head in bed scene in The Godfather...you've seen this right?) is pretty clever. The cut to the Audi R8 sitting in his driveway looking sinister, works well. Who knew a luxury car could have such a dark side?

Diet Pepsi Max: "Roxbury/What Is Love?

The best of the night so far. It starts off innocently enough with Troy Aikmen commenting on the action in the first quarter when Joe nods off and bangs his head on his mic. Queue music ("What is Love?") and we then get a montage of people across all industries nodding off at their jobs, at dinner, at awards shows, on game shows. I'm pretty sure that's Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and Macy Gray nodding off while they were up for "Song of the Year." This keeps up until Diet Pepsi Max comes along on a mail cart and everyone starts doing "The Roxbury," or the head bopping made famous by Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell in the recurring SNL skits. The bit ends with Troy staring at Joe as Joe bops along. But the best part is after the blurbs about Diet Pepsi Max and the slogans, we get a quick shot of Chris Kattan shopping, yelling "Stop it!" to two girls doing the head bop.

FedEx: "Carrier Pigeons"

Am I the only one watching this commercial who wasn't worried about the huge carrier pigeon dropping pianos, or whatever that huge box was, but rather dropping... something else? I don't know that I like this commercial for FedEx as much as some of the quieter, in-office commercials. This one was too busy, too super-heroey, too chaotic. But it was vaguely amusing. No comment, no editorializing, no yelling about the pigeons and the chaos and the huge mess they have made, and the expense, possible lawsuits, etc. Just a quiet, "Let's switch to FedEx." I still haven't really seen any commercials to write home about yet.

Via TVSquad & SpikeTV

Hori Fighting Stick Wii Review

by joshed

Cubed3 gives Hori's Fighting Stick Wii a Final Score of 9 out of 10. Since I have not tried the Fighting Stick yet myself, this article gives much needed insight into this controller's usability. At about $59 US, How many of these will you pick up?

An excellent Hori product that is understandably licensed by Nintendo. £29.99 is a great price to pay for such high quality, this joystick was built to last and is practically flawless. Be sure to give it a try