Was Brad held hostage?

I came to the Giantbomb family only about 5 years ago, I missed the boys entirely in their previous lines of work and decided recently it'd be fun to see what the guys looked like when younger. Which.. is.. when I came across this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBohBE-17JU&t=80s

Is Brad being held against his will in this video? Can you imagine this stilted awkward young man would go on to have such easy self confidence and assurance?

A lot of them sounded pretty bored when reviewing games, even for games that they liked a lot. It was a bit jarring, but that may have just been a thing back then. This was when being a face on camera and talking about games was still only a few years in. It'd be interesting to hear why they were like that, but it might just be because they weren't sure how to go about it all exactly. Plus, he might just be reading something (which actually seems like something GameSpot does now, again as they pretty much say exactly what they wrote as a review with a few details missing).

Brad sounds like Johnny Cash in that clip.

"...Love Is A Burning Thing
And It Makes A Fiery Ring
Bound By Wild Desire
I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire

I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
I Went Down, Down, Down
And The Flames Went Higher"

Yes he was, held hostage and brainwashed by some Brits....hence all the tea drinking now.

I believe Brad mentioned on a UPF that GameSpot actually wanted reviews to have that sort of monotone voice back then, and not sound too excited. I'm sure I recall him saying something along those lines.

All I know is that all Brad videos from back in the day are like that, so kudos to him for being such a great on-cam personality these days.

Its interesting to go back to the crews first video stuff with gamespot, you can see how far they came especially jeff and ryan(rip).

It’s definitely a mix of shyness on camera, the style of video gamespot did back then and the fact that they did a billion of these reviews each year. Even Ryan’s early videos had this quality and few people had a bigger personality than ryan.

I mean, you have to remember that games journalism at the time was primarily focused on written content. Most people who got into the industry at that time did so to write articles, features, or reviews. They all had to kind of adapt to games media becoming about an on-camera presence.

I recently looked at his Final Fantasy X-2 review and all the comments were calling him out on it but it was a different time. Reviews were either way over the top or kind of monotone. Neither in a way that a human would actually talk about that stuff.

They wanted tv style professional video reviews read from a script, it took some time before everyone was allowed to let their personalities free in official content.

I haven't seen much of their old stuff, but what I have seen, both of them seemed like they were on point since day one and haven't really changed at all.

Any awkward old videos to share?

@pweidman: also the very posh English accent he lets occasionally slip through.

This is still my favorite Gamespot Brad video. The audio of the game is slightly too high, so it's very hard to focus on the droning voice :D

Nothing specific and nothing really awkward just stuff you could tell they weren't used to being on camera yet. By the time on the spot was doing it's thing they were pro's at it though.

@humanity: Brad died many years ago and was replaced by a body double. They got almost everything right except for the tea thing. And the double doesn't seem to be as into Dota.

@panimu: lol more people need to see this

Early Brad video reviews are a treasure trove. Did they ever look at these together on a UPF or something? Because they should!

These are great to see. He didn't really have his real "internet" personality out because back then they were going strictly off a script they had written and then pumped out a video for it.

Some would say they still are.

@atomicoldman: I think he definitely found his flow. Maybe Brad isn’t the most exuberant personality on the team but that more reserved chill balanced out the team so well back when it was one office. These days I really like Brad and I think he does a great job hosting the Bombcast, even if the Bombcast itself is no longer (to me) as good as it once was.

Is this an ASMR video?

@dudeglove: I think Jeff is that unique rare case of being a real natural at it

@dudeglove: well I mean natural as in he came into the industry kinda already good at it. I'm sure everyone at 15 is cringy in some way.

While certainly not terrible, a lot of Jeff's earlier GameSpot stuff was far more robotic than he is today.