New Nintendo 3DS Ad: Sisterly Combat With Penelope & Monica Cruz

OK, "Pause" needs hit here. This new Nintendo 3DS/"New Super Mario Bros. 2" ad just raises a question about video game marketing that often confounds me on a certain level.

It's a bigger question I come to by way of asking, why Penélope Cruz?

It's nothing against the Spanish beauty. She's a bewitching lady, with a magnetic cuteness all her own that's not quite belied by her entrancing visage or flawless form. But why is it so rare that when pegging well-known folks to help pitch products to gamers, it seems so infrequent that mainstream advertising boasts figures about whom gamers actually give a rip?

Despite Nintendo's more recent gravitating toward the "casual"-gamer market that just sticks with a handful of accessible, familiar franchises and titles, it sometimes feels like I might never see the day someone with some real "geek cred" is given an ad campaigns spotlight. I find it hard to believe that even Olivia Munn wouldn't have made more sense. Morgan Webb? Felicia Day? Hell, Day is a devout PC gamer, but at least that's a scenario in which gamers aren't asking each other, "Do you think she'd ever even held a 3DS before the shoot?"

That's not to necessarily "doubt" Cruz. It's altogether believable that she'd enjoy a little downtime with Mario and Luigi in her trailer between scenes.

(It's also altogether "believable" - since I'm copping to it - that I just read that last sentence back to myself and nearly bathed my laptop in latté.)

Even then, I'm left wondering, "Gee, do we see Seth Rogen set up as the paragon of all Nike stands for as an athletic brand? Then why can't some marketers be bothered to pander just occasionally to gamers by featuring the 'celebrity' gamers we admire?"

In all fairness, Penélope and her little sister Mónica - who is every bit the warm, happy stunner her sister's always been - square off in quite the adorable little sisterly wager-race to the end of a level using the 3DS's wireless multiplayer functionality. And when one comes out on top, the other "knows what [she] has to do."

And what's that, you ask? No spoilers here, but I warn you, men: you may be about to develop a conflicting complex about Mario. One couldn't blame that poor waiter at the end if he did.