Roddick plays Pong [Update 1]

by Vladimir Cole { Feb 1st 2006 at 3:00AM }

Andy Roddick finally meets his match in this commercial for American Express. This concept has legs. How about a match between Mike Tyson and Balrog from Street Fighter II? Or a match between Florence Griffith Joyner and Sonic the Hedgehog? Or between competitive eating champion Kobayashi and Pac Man?

[Update 1: removed autoplay. A technical glitch caused the video to play automatically on site load. We apologize.]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ill trooper @ Feb 1st 2006 3:25AM

Nice one!

SetupWeasel @ Feb 1st 2006 3:26AM

You can tell this isn't real tennis, because Roddick doesn't choke and lose.

ymmv @ Feb 1st 2006 3:28AM

Could you please turn off the autoplay for this ad? Each time I visit or refresh the Joystiq site the damn thing starts to play. The ad is fun one time, but I don't want it loading and wasting bandwidth all the time.

Vagabond Artist @ Feb 1st 2006 3:37AM

that's genius.

ee22 @ Feb 1st 2006 3:39AM

Took him so long to figure it out.

Canti @ Feb 1st 2006 4:17AM

Alas! He has found pong's true weakness!

boneyard @ Feb 1st 2006 4:48AM

indeed, can you please not autoplay such things, it's very annoying.

Fader @ Feb 1st 2006 5:27AM

I agree with #3, you should not use autoplay on the main page. I liked the way you were able to embed the previous videos in the main page but they didn't play until you clicked them. I don't like hearing this ad every time I hit refresh.

AssemblyLineHuman @ Feb 1st 2006 5:56AM

Advertisements that appeal to gamers without being obvious. Another good sign for the industry.

And the ad is pretty funny.

MosquitoControl @ Feb 1st 2006 9:07AM

I'm in agreeance about autoplay.

Not only is it annoying to suddenly hear sound every time I go to this website (which is why I stopped going to some other gaming sites (cough 1up cough), but when I tried to open the comments page in a new window, like I always do, my browser crashed. Apparently it didn't like having two instances of the movie running.

I think I'll wait a while before I come back to Joystiq, give the ad some time to go away. But, honestly, if this became a regular occurance you'd lose readers. Not to mention probably cause crashes and, if you had several on the same day, confusion.

Tom @ Feb 1st 2006 9:21AM

I'm with #3 and the others. The autoplay is incredibly annoying, especially since it is for an ad. Even if it was just a fan video or something it would still be useless. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm browsing a 16-year-olds MySpace page when I come here.

Modano @ Feb 1st 2006 9:41AM

GODDAMMIT! Thanks for the autoplay sound, jerks! I'll never read Joystiq at work again.

vc @ Feb 1st 2006 10:07AM

Sorry about autoplay. It was completely unintentional.

David Rudden @ Feb 1st 2006 10:09AM

"How about a match between Mike Tyson and Balrog from Street Fighter II?"

Ah, but Mike Tyson already has earned a spot in videogame lore, starring in Punch-Out and some mediocre PS1 game.

play games @ Feb 1st 2006 12:15PM

Really nice concept and execution on this advertisement. I see this is an Australian tv ad, it must have been done leading up to the Australian Open Tournament going on recently. I'd like to see more of this style, rather than real people going into video game worlds!