Holiday Specialtacular 2016: Old Acquaintance

This was an amazing watch, this was around the time that I got into GameSpot. No one was fucking with GameSpot back in those days. It's sad what the site has become.

Ryan :'D - Thanks for watching this (with us)!

TWO HOURS?!

Y'all outdid yourselves this year!

Ryan looks so beautifully ridiculous. Fuck, I love that man.

Ryan appearing in a new video on the site in 2016. :)

In a one dimensional world that sounds fine to me.

This was the one year I was actually able to go to E3. :o

It's very hard for me to not always take "ice-nine" as a Zero Escape reference, lol

Um... does anyone actually know the name of the music playing during the credits? I also remember hearing it here:

I would really love to know. Maybe Jeff uploaded it at some point, but I was never able to find it anywhere.

Alex is an immortal being, confirmed

This is amazing.

Editor's note: The preceding review is a re-evaluation of Shenmue on GameSpot - the original score overlooked certain significant features that, after consideration, invalidated the original score that the game received. GameSpot regrets the error.

Wowwww. They seriously bumped it up from 6.8 to 7.8 and apologized for the "error" that is the original review. That's sort of unbelievable. Makes me glad certain events happened the way they did so we could end up where we are now.

I, too, am interested in this. If @jeff were to upload (or re-upload, if that's the case) this song to SoundCloud, I would be more than a little appreciative.

Regardless, I enjoyed this look into the past. This was the era in which I started actively following GameSpot (along with many others, I'm sure) and it was nice to see plenty of familiar faces, be shown the chaos, that was E3, from their perspective, and to hear what Jeff, Brad, Alex, and Vinny had to say about those times.

Greg Kasavin, founder of GiantBombs.com

Awesome video. I will always miss Ryan Davis... what a guy!

Huh, in the credits at the end: "Titles: Dino Ignacio". That's the guy that did all the UI stuff on Dead Space.

He used to work for Gamespot.

This was an incredible look back

I... I don't think people wore shorts like that in 2005. I remember those from middle school, which would have been more like 96-99. JNCOs and such.

These sort of retrospective segments are always extremely interesting, glad they could do this when Vinny and Alex were in town

@fnert_bjerglen: I think in California they had a decent popularity/resurgence in the mid 2000s. I recall high schoolers to 30+ wearing them.

I don't miss big shorts. :p

Thanks for taking us down memory lane duders.

If I recall the one from '04 was titled Operation Stupid Pants. Someone correct me.

Jeff dropping a Cat's Cradle reference caught me off guard.

Wow, this really was something else. As a Gamespot fan from not long before this era, it was so special, surreal and comforting to see the four guys experience this E3 again. To see how things used to be. I love the current set up and content, but coverage back then had a visceral excitement that's largely lost, with an us-against-the-world mentality that can't ever be truly repeated. Seeing the faces of then Gamespot crew back in the early days of internet gaming video content is really special, and I particularly enjoyed having Jeff, Alex, Brad and Vinny watch it with us. I really hope that every now and then you guys can make another of these. Thank you.

#E3Histories

Roger Chang was in a lot of scenes but I didn't hear them mention him, so I guess their paths never crossed. I first knew of him from his TechTV days.

I've only gotten past those opening credits on the documentary and oh my god, the number of recognisable names on that list. I miss all of those people.

Gamespot really was the best at one point.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Also fascinating to hear how you guys managed to pull this stuff off. And that hot decade old Shenmue gossip.

Can't believe I'm being told the Homer segments were batch recorded. They were my favourite bits and I was convinced they were happening live.

This was the era of GameSpot when I joined, circa 2005. On The Spot, Rich Gallup, Homer Rabara, Ryan Mac Donald, The HotSpot. Those were the days. Then 2007 blew it apart but in the long run that was a good thing as we got Giant Bomb out of it. Still miss Ryan.

That vinyl of Jeff looks great. Greg Kasavin secretly invented Giant Bomb in 2005.

It's really interesting to hear Jeff talk about the headspace of GameSpot management circa 2007; they thought the website didn't really need the identities behind it and that people were simply there for the game content. I think what Jeff's sacking proved was that GameSpot definitely did need people, and Giant Bomb's success is a testament to that. Today GameSpot is basically a shell of its former glory. While it's still a top 1000 website, it doesn't have any of the personality it used to have, and most of the time it seems like a vehicle of the marketing department.

P.S. I was a GameSpot moderator from 2008 - 2014. I left after the website redesign in 2013 which basically gutted the community elements and ripped many forums apart, including the GSUK forum where I spent most of my time. It was the last straw after dealing with management who increasingly didn't seem to care about the community whatsoever.

Alex..................fucking...................sold that intro

Finally got around to finishing this and wow what an experience. Really makes you see the stark difference between the industry now and then, not to mention the fashion..

Big shorts are still in, they are called Capri Pants

I downloaded that E3 video like three years ago from some random thread in the forums and I've seen it roughly 10 times. Awesome to finally see it with their current points of view.

God it was really different back then. Crazy how things have changed. Awesome video.

I think it was when Rich left and I stopped following On The Spot is when I started visiting Gamespot less. And then once Jeff (and then basically everyone else) had gone, I rarely went there. But man, during that period when Gamespot was on it, they were on it, and I loved every bit of it. Such a concentration of great people doing great work.

I am happy that quite a few of them found their way to this here Giant Bomb. It may not be the same, but it really is it's own kind of awesome.

@gbrading said:

Same here, I got into Gamespot in 2005 also, in fact it was via this exact E3 that got me into it as I wanted to see what the new PS3 was all about and I watched the press conference on a tiny little video on Gamespot. So happy I landed there as that is what got me into Jeff and the gang and I followed him to Giant Bomb.

Anyone know this track? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Mv7RYkFa0&t=2515s