You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

Sometimes, here on Ad Space, I like to showcase how the advertising for a particular product evolved over time. Take a look at this early, 1970’s ad for the game Crossfire:

It’s just a normal looking parent and child playing the game against an ordinary backdrop, both looking quite happy and relaxed. The narrator may say nothing is more exciting than Crossfire, but their delivery is still very slow and laidback. The music I think is at least trying to be somewhat thrilling, doing what sounds like an imitation of the sort of music you’d hear in spy movies of the era … but not a very good imitation.

However, clearly someone decided this all wasn’t badass enough, so they went, “What if we filmed the whole thing through a gun’s crosshairs?”

That’d set the tone for Crossfire ads going forward, because our next one, from the 1980’s, cranks that vibe up a notch:

Now the music is a fast-paced jam that repeats the word “fire” a lot. Now our players are two kids who approach the game with steely determination on their faces (and one of them’s wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and a headband, because 80’s). And now, instead of a normal setting for tabletop game, it’s somewhere where the sun is beating down like a monster, drawing buckets of sweat from our two players as they struggle for the win.

This commercial is definitely trying to be more intense and extreme than its predecessor, but of course, no one could do EXTREEEEEEME! quite like the 1990’s:

The setting is now “sometime in the future”, a dystopian hellscape of screaming crowds and constant lightning strikes. A future where two leather clad kids surf through the sky on giant, flying game pieces, arriving at an arena covered in flames, to compete in “the ultimate challenge”: a game of Crossfire so intense, the loser is sent hurtling off into the sky (presumably to their death). Set to the tunes of a hard rock song full of grunts and shrieks, and edited with rapid fire cuts and intense closeups, it achieves the epitome of 90’s coolness

I haven’t been able to find any Crossfire commercials made since then, but why would they bother? They’re never gonna top that one.