Landon Donovan Is a Good Sport About His World Cup Snub in This Great New Ad

Life is good for Landon Donovan, even though he isn’t playing in the 2014 World Cup—at least according to this new ad for EA Sports.

Instead of participating in the world’s biggest sporting event, the U.S. soccer icon is rolling out of bed late in the morning and chilling in his terry cloth bathrobe, enjoying his morning coffee and playing as himself in the PlayStation 3’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil (where, apparently, it’s easier for him to score.)

The spot is a clever, topical and deftly executed take on U.S. coach Jürgen Klinsmann’s controversial decision not to bring Donovan with the national team to Brazil, a move that observers will continue to parse as the tournament unfolds.

Donovan’s self-deprecating performance in the ad is excellent, especially at the end of the clip, when a deadpan song about getting left behind turns out to be less morose than it seems.

But if he does start getting lonely, he can always go hang out with Beckham and Zidane in Adidas’ ad. Nike, though, probably wouldn’t like that much.



PlayStation Packs Two Decades of Gamer Nostalgia Into One Clip

Now this is what corporate nostalgia should look like. Inspired by responses to the #playstationmemories tag on Twitter, British agency PHD's content division, Drum, created this time-warping video clip that charts the history of PlayStation's evolution all the way back to the ancient past: 1995.

Absurd attention was paid to every single detail in the room, allowing you to watch the nearly three and a half minutes of video over and over while still noticing different subtle changes to the magazines,  posters, figurines and games lying on the floor. The creators even spent a good deal of their budget digitally altering the London skyline instead of just telling us the year had changed.

It all creates a strangely moving effect. I didn't realize how just listening to the start-up sounds of each generation of console would transport me back. I felt real tears lurking at the memories—or maybe I was just mourning how many hours of my youth I'd wasted.

It's really a fantastic clip, one that's dead-on with the sort of nostalgia Sony will have to generate to get its core players to shell out for yet another high-powered console with no backward compatibility. But one thing: Almost 20 years after getting his first PlayStation, and the dude is still living in the same room at home with his mom? Ouch, man. Maybe it's time Daniel ditched the PlayStation and got a JobStation.

Hat tip to Mashable.