2008's Top 5 Shittest Adverts

by Alex J Allen

#1 Haribo Star Mix Advert, Aug '08

#2 Davina McCall L'Oreal Ad Jan '08

#3 Moonpig.com Ad '08

#4 Confused.com ads '07 - '08

#5 Greggs Bakers ads '08

Do we really need an Electronic Potato Peeler?

by Tom Clarke
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I was watching Channel 4 literally half an hour ago and an advert came on that shocked and outraged me far more than it should have. This was the product being advertised.

I have more issuses with this product than i care to mention, so I'll simply outline a few of them:

Firstly, the advert was shot similarly to a razor commercial, with people stroking potatoes...I was surprised that there wasn't an attractive lady-potato for our newly-shorn hero to walk off into the sunset with at the end. I really hope it was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, honestly I do.

I can get over the cheesy advert, I'm intellingent enough to see what they were trying to achieve, but I can honestly say I've never seen an advert for a potato peeler on telly before. It's not like before this 'major breakthrough' in peeling technology came in that TV was full of adverts for manual peelers is it?

But my main problem with this is because I'm a chef. No. Not because I believe it's cheating to use an electric peeler, nor that I worry that people will realise they too can now peel potatoes and will no longer come to my restaurant to eat. My real gripe with putting this advert on TV is that when my 15 year-old Kitchen Porter turns up for work on Friday, he'll have seen the advert. And this means that he'll moan about the fact he has to use a manual peeler.

Which means it'll cost me fifteen fucking quid.

Sigh...at least it comes in a choice of colours...

Housten, Wii Have a Problem...

by Alex Allen
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Has the Wii concept hit the wall? It's a question that doesn't attempt to contest the undeniable success the console has had since its launch in 2006, but asks whether that success is sustainable over the years to come. The trouble with the Wii, is that it's all concept. Graphically it isn't even as powerful as the Playstation 2, which hasn't mattered until now because that's never been its appeal. It's appeal was that it was changing the way people were playing, the games themselves looked pretty much the same as they had on the Gamecube. But now, developers seem to be out of ideas, and the innovative new games have dried up. Without the prospect of graphical improvement, where do the existing games go after that? Look at the current Wii chart, it's the tennis, bowling and other party games that are still prevailing. These kinds of games were kicking around when the console launched, and the best sports games on the Wii are still those that are on the free disc that ships with it. Nintendo have been hugely successful in adapting the way gamers play games, and developers have made huge strides in adapting classics, like Pro Evolution for example, for this new market. What I find most baffling, is the obvious games that should be out by now. An expanded Wii Sports, with online capability and more sports, would be worth £35 of any one's money. Playstation are in the process of launching an expanded version of its Buzz quiz, this is the sort of game that was born to be played on the Wii, so where is it? Why are Nintendo rehashing Mario games in various incarnations, when they've developed a concept capable of so much more than that? Nintendo has an opportunity to redefine the way in which gamers play games altogether, and be the definitive model that the next consoles will follow, but it now it faces the prospect of being the prototype for Sony and Microsoft to observe and adapt their next consoles to. The question ultimately, is whether the Wii concept is enough to survive in its own right, or whether it needs the graphical power its competitors have to enjoy any long term future, or whether it will ultimately end up being eaten up and becoming an arm of one of the bigger players. The Wii has proven that given the right product, it is possible to target demographics that gamers were never capable of before, the test now is how to keep this new audience spending money when all you can offer them is more of the same.