People who are permitted to commentate need to be shown that mic placement is important. That’s have the reason for distortion. Secondly they need to have an on/off button for changeovers and such. Hearing people take off headsets and being deafened by feedback and mics rubbing and banging tables was painful.
James Chen was very personable. Seth is a fantastic play by play man who not only conveys information but also gets across the drama of competition. Skisonic is brilliant for getting across the drama and excitement, but needs a bit more training when it comes to speaking.
What Evo really lacks is someone with a deep insight into the game mechanics and top level play. Not just telling us that spacing and mind games are going on. Explain what it is that is winning the footsie battles and why. Elaborate as to what mind games are being played, what things are being baited and what option selects are being used.
Admittedly that is very difficult to do on the fly, and would be the perfect commentary addition. But perhaps it is something to work towards. When you watch sporting events, commentary teams have copious notes in front of them with facts on every player, previous meetings and other such things. Obviously they are being paid and Evo is supported by volunteers, but it is something to aim for. It’s a huge event with massive cash prizes attracting online viewers of 25k+. You should always strive to improve everything about it.
I actually think if English was his first language, Chris Hu would be the best commentator. He actually tells you why and how things happen amongst his catchphrases and humour. His commentary on the Daigo vs Andre Money Match from last year was incredibly insightful for example: [media=youtube]EdlK7xeJJEQ[/media]
Sessler shouldn’t have been commentating the grand finals. Top 8, sure why not, but not the grand finals. It kinda ruined it for me. I’m just thinking how disappointing it’s gonna be when months down the line, I (and everyone else) choose to rewatch the finals and have to be reminded of this.
Skisonic. I really enjoy when he has a functioning voice as he’s very knowledgeable of the games he commentates and his own excitement makes things more hype for the viewer, but from the moment his voice went out and he started screaming into the mic, I had to drastically lower the volume. It was the fg equivalent of the vuvuzela.
Tekken commentary. As much as I hate to bring this up because tekken was my game when I used to compete, I really had a problem with the commentary “team”, especially Aris, for no other reason than the very heavy bias.
They are amongst the most knowledgeable in the game and explain things over the stream well, but they gotta be a lot more objective. There are tons of people watching the stream who don’t know the game + have no favorites and who they favor shouldn’t be influenced by comments like “oh c’mon, he shouldn’t be losing to this guy” or “dude, you shoulda had that” as if their teammates were clearly better than their opponents regardless of the outcome of the match.
No other commentators for any of the other games did this. Not one. Commentators should never play favorites.
Aris was pretty annoying when he’d start kissing his teeth and whining whenever his peeps made a mistake or something. Without knowing it was Evo, you’d think it was the SoCal vs. The World tournament.
Rich, I don’t mind as a commentator whatsoever as he’s done a great job commentating MLG events alongside Seb. He’s a lot more objective when not commentating with own team. Unfortunately, he was clearly feeding of Aris last night and showed more bias than he normally would.
For real? I thought James Chen was absolutely great for this. He often even interrupted s-kill to point something out that everyone had missed.
eg, when Tokido (I think, or another Akuma) was trying to get the vortex going on Gamerbees Adon, only Chen knew the reason why it wasn’t working - and pointed out that you have to change all your vortex timings on Adon because his wake up time is very different to other characters. Even Keits and co. were suprised at this lol
I’m not even going to mention the dreaded ‘sizzler’ person…
S-kill, Keits, Ski, and James Chen: you guys are AWESOME. Each have your own strengths and I love the way you provide insight into some of the more technical areas of players play. I’d have liked to have seen your commentry last night on Infil and Gamerbees final matches. Seth K couldn’t do it all on his own as he was pandering to the sizzler.
Oh I agree, and I mentioned Chen as a plus on the commentary. However I don’t think I heard much of him on finals day, which is when you would logically think you see the most high level strategies. Perhaps it was the fatigue kicking in.
But I would like to see more insightful analysis of the ‘why’, rather than just constant referal to some mystical ‘mind games’.
I have a strong feeling that Skisonic and the white guy with the glasses were starting to get on each other’s nerves. Skisonic just started to say “yeah” and talked over him at a few points. The guy with the glasses repeated himself 25 times about the room shaking after Justin got knocked out. The body language was even a bit odd with him sitting far off to the left.
Seeing Sherry up there was cool, but it was a sort of funny how she would say “oh no…” all the time.
Having Sessler on was an excellent opportunity to explain the game to newcomers. He should not have been commentating, but rather asking questions when things got too confusing (which he did a few times and it wasn’t bad, but the rest of the time…)
Agreed, the amount of bias was astounding. It’s okay for a commentator to have a little bit of bias, after all we all want someone to win, but to express it so openly is highly unprofessional.
" The white guy with GLasses"… LOL… wasn’t that Keits!?
Anyways…Tops to Ski!!! Always enjoy his fast pace commentary and knowledge of the games especially MvC2. I keep saying it, but damn bro bring Honey with you for dat voicebox.
James Chen, S-Kill, and the rest ALL TOP NOTCH. I enjoyed everyone commentary.
Not so Much $e$$ler, but we ALL know why he HAD to be there.
Even the Guys being the MC at EVO. GETTING IT HYPED!!!
i must be in the minority but i do not like seth’s commentary at all. he overuses the same damn words. last year he called everything clutch, this year everything was a damn shenanigan, it is just annoying.
then you have him trying to explain stuff like what a safe jump is, what a cancel is, what footsies are, etc. really basic shit hs is explaining to a stream of us watching an ssf4 tourney.
if we are nerdy enough to be watching a damn ssf4 tourney, i’d guess we know wtf the basics of ssf4 are.
and his monotonous voice is just boring as hell too.
the guys commentating the days of the pools were by far the best imo.
Not enough yipes, we were about to hear the epic combined commentary of james and yipes when skill jumped in before they had 3 mics. That was the biggest disappointment of the weekend for mr
I loved almost all of the commentary.
But the random dude at the finals was awful.
S-Kill, Ski, Keits etc… All of them were just great, and it’s obvious why they were picked to commentate.
Also the girl didn’t really add much, she got a few careful words in every now and then between ski and keits barrage of commentary. Still, it makes sense to have a girl on when it’s the women finals I guess.
Dogface is awesome and funny, but I felt he was a bit too frisky during TvC. Felt very out of place to be cracking jokes about costumes and stuff during the finals.
And props to Aris for not swearing, that must have been hard and to Royal Flush tagging in to commentate TvC when needed, he was also great.
Aris (Tekken) was overly biased got too emotional at times
In the finals, RIP was gaining momentum and starting to feel good and showing it, we heard roughly
“This is ridiculous! RIP should be more serious! He’s gonna pay for that later! This is a serious tournament and RIP is going to pay for that smiling and tongue sticking out! Shouldn’t do that!!”
Aris (Tekken) was overly biased got too emotional at times
In the finals, RIP was gaining momentum and starting to feel good and showing it, we heard roughly
“This is ridiculous! RIP should be more serious! He’s gonna pay for that later! This is a serious tournament and RIP is going to pay for that smiling and tongue sticking out! Shouldn’t do that!!”
I was very disappointed by the commentary for SSF4 top 8. This was the most important section of the biggest and most-watched tournament in Evo history, and while the players made sure it was still amazing, the production value was not what I’d hoped it be.
I understand that there was a deal between Evo and G4 and that Sessler had to be in. If that brought in casual viewers, then that’s great, it’s good for Evo and good for the sene. But from a production quality point of view, he was still a big negative. Obviously I wish they could have picked someone more knowledgeable about the game instead. Failing that, if they had to go with Sessler, then I wish they’d made him prepare better. I mean, here’s a guy so fundamentally lacking in any knowledge about Street Fighter that he thought the matches were about tallying rounds instead of games! And if they needed Sessler and realized he was being awful, I really wish they would have put a third commentator in to try to help Seth out.
Seth is a great commentator and was doing all he could, but when you have to do all the play-by-play, insight, AND hype by yourself while also trying to deal with someone who knows nothing but insists on having his voice heard anyway, your own commentary can’t help but suffer.
Yeah. I thought it was an unfortunate choice. (sorry, I rarely say that irl, not sure why it came out so much on the stream. every commentator has his go-to phrase or saying, but i’m working on limiting that as much as I can!)
Yo despite all the complaints that are going on (from myself included), the commentary for 99% of the weekend was absolutely incredible. A little … tangential at times. But I can’t hate on that … it’s a long ass weekend to just sit and do srs commentary all day. Everyone who sat at that table during the weekend deserves respect.
Except Sessler. To have him commentating top 8 completely unprepared is, quite frankly, embarrassing. He tried, I think… but he was very clearly lost most of the time.
and to Royal Flush tagging in to commentate TvC when needed, he was also great.