I'm actually willing to concede that. James isn't that great really. But id take Lee Chung and Sci over both of them.
Even still, james gives Fword a run for his money. Zhis better than both of those guys honestly, he just gets carried away.
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Fighting Games Weekly | June 22-28 | Ryu's in Smash 4, Jigglypuff's in SF5
- Thread starter enzo_gt
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Even still, james gives Fword a run for his money. Zhis better than both of those guys honestly, he just gets carried away.
Karsticles
Member
He always takes the time to explain stuff.
I don't agree, I think you're going on the basis of being intelligible, professional and friendly, and James definitely hits those points.
I'm not sure a wider audience necessarily wants that though. There are points when James' commentary cracks, particularly at points of real suspense or shock in a match and I feel his commentary suffers as a whole for that. As a viewer I don't want a commentator detracting from what's happening because they're trying to get hype but instead come across more as a fan boy.
I think James and David would do much better paired with other commentators, for James in particular a colour commentator who can shout and say stupid shit. James can do analysis and play-by-play, but leave the hype and jokes to someone who doesn't crack under pressure. I don't mean to come across too blunt about it, and I wouldn't want to offend either of them in saying that.
Put it another way, the commentator my casual friends best recognise and like is Yipes.
Parallax Scroll
Banned
Does he even commentate anything these days? I've mostly seen him as a host/interviewer/spokesperson lately.
MiniBossBattle
Member
James Chen is the best. He has the best(or worst) puns and and is informative.
Ultrachen is one of the best combos. I always liked the combination of Aris and Tasty Steve aswell.Less proffesional but hilarious.
notworksafe
Member
James is fine as long as you completely ignore every opinion he has on Cammy.
Zhi can be really great because he makes quirky references from a swath of things I particularly have knowledge of, but much of the time he's just cringeworthy and is a habitual line stepper.
Also, I know it's a lot to expect from someone already doing so, but when he's interviewing someone in Japanese he kind of forgets to translate back a lot of the time.
Also, I know it's a lot to expect from someone already doing so, but when he's interviewing someone in Japanese he kind of forgets to translate back a lot of the time.
People don't like F-Word?! C'mon! He's got the knowledge, he's got the hype, he's really good! And makes a great duo with LoganSama, who is also a great commentator.
But I don't think anyone is as good as Aris. He's perfect. Not commentating Street Fighter tho, he has the enthusiasm, not the knowledge. But for Mk and Tekken he's amazing in every aspect. Ultradavid is fantastic for any game he knows, definetely my two favorite commentators. F-Word is a close third. Zhi is really really good when he's not crazy weird.
And don't hate on James Chen and Ski, they are awesome people and good commentators
Juicebox was awesome doing KOF commentary back in the days were he would actually go to tournaments
REALLY glad to read this
But I don't think anyone is as good as Aris. He's perfect. Not commentating Street Fighter tho, he has the enthusiasm, not the knowledge. But for Mk and Tekken he's amazing in every aspect. Ultradavid is fantastic for any game he knows, definetely my two favorite commentators. F-Word is a close third. Zhi is really really good when he's not crazy weird.
And don't hate on James Chen and Ski, they are awesome people and good commentators
Juicebox was awesome doing KOF commentary back in the days were he would actually go to tournaments
I hope you start going again someday man <3
REALLY glad to read this
Shouta
Member
But your casual friends aren't the same audience as folks that are tuning in for the first time or are a mainstream viewer that had their interest piqued by a random clip. Being a casual FG viewer is still an FG viewer. Folks like Yipes, Lee Chung, even Zhi are folks that are perfect within this gaming community but when you go outside of our niche, the expectations who should be sitting in that seat are different.
To use a different scenario I think James is one of the handful of commentators in the FGC that we could legitimately put on the air if we were to air a tournament to millions of people on network or cable TV. Not that we're anywhere close to that but James' ability and presence is what we'll need going forward in the long term.
Yes, lol.
I remember when he was commentating with Mike Ross and Zhi made an analogy of a player catching fire, something to the effect of burn like a church in the south. Mike was like "Yo chill!"
On the topic of commentary, never forget HellPockets @ EVO2012.
ShinMaruku
Member
I'd be the worst commentator, I would just take shots at games for not having booty jk
I like James Chen and Ski I like a variety of styles if commentary.
Also his pronunciation of Fei Long and Yun is perfection. Makes me wish me granddad was not bitter and taught his children Cantonese...
I like James Chen and Ski I like a variety of styles if commentary.
Also his pronunciation of Fei Long and Yun is perfection. Makes me wish me granddad was not bitter and taught his children Cantonese...
Holy Order Sol
Member
Don't people like Mike Ross as a commentator too?
DryEyeRelief
Member
He's on par with James Chen
only when paired with combofiend
He's absolutely terrible with gootecks. Keep that shit on excellent adventures pls. He doesn't really have anything worthwhile to contribute on his own tbh.
Professor Beef
Banned
This is good since I was never able to find a 4th person for the room after my friend had to bow out due to work.
KidA Seven
Member
F-Word gets a lot of things wrong when it comes to player history something that Zhi is really great at.
Also I think Gama san, the NSB organizer who originally said "Umehara ga" and was brought back for the manga pv, is going to do commentary for Topanga's Charity Cup.
Here are the notable teams so far for Topanga Charity Cup which is in 9-10 days.
Kachitagari - Fuudo, Sako, Choco, Tokido, YHC Mochi
Topanga - Momochi, Nyanshi, Nemo, Kazunoko, Jyobin
Shinonga - Daigo, Oshino, Bonchan, Mago, Misse
Super Turbo - Yoshiwo, Sasori, Baby Nine, Miko, Choujin
Hame - Kojiro, Kenzo (svelteaverage), Jinetta, Nizza, Diechan
Kokunuki - Sentosu, KSK, Aru, Kokujin, Nuki
Korea - Infiltration, Hydebuffy, Bigdanmul, Saulabi, DBKoopa
Yubiken - Shiro, Dashio, Kim123, Kichijojiken, Santarou
Takeda Family - TKD, Itazan, Taiga, Nekojita, Sabohani
Collaboration - Justin Wong, Ryan Hart, Pepeday, Pugera, unknown
Katakanade - Yoshikibi, Jeppa, Kai, Aoki, Super Uriajjo
Shinjuki Taito - Nishikin, Inco, Kyoku, Akimo, Tonpy
Character love - Ebi, Y, Vivi, Juso, Shinba
Shouta
Member
Oh good, i think Engima (the guy that was with Q last year) is coming in Friday night so it'll be you 3 Thurs night.
Edit: Or not... So just you 3, lol
We can help with the room though, no big.
KidA Seven
Member
ShinMaruku Pls...
Ok so two bits here, one to clarify on my side and one to refute, but not too forcefully.
By casual friends I mean people who don't play or watch fg streams, regardless of whether they play or watch other types of games (they predominantly don't though). What I'm trying to argue here is that this is exactly the kind of person the wider scene wants to attract. People who have some interest but haven't really given fighting games much thought before, but given the right material and the right host suddenly have their interest and curiosity piqued, I'd argue that someone like Aris, Yipes or Indy (Gucci Suit) would better achieve that than James.
On the TV front, I'd ask you if that is quite what we want in the first place. If our biggest event of the year attracts between 80 to 150,000 viewers, is there any point in trying to aim at a viewership of ten or twenty times that? Is the idea here that if you get someone wearing a suit and tie, someone who is polite and pleasant that it's going to attract or retain a more "middle-of-the-road" audience? This ain't ESPN.
'
Certainly...
This...not so much. I suppose they're lower-mid tier.
Few people are actually terrible.
ThatCrazyGuy
Member
Yes, he is not that good.
oh god yes. him and gootecks are the drizzling shits. don't get me wrong, they are cool guys and very charismatic but they are NOT commentators.
Yes. As much as I love Mike...he keeps laughing at random stuff and things off stream, so you hear he laughing his ass off and have NO IDEA wtf he's laughing about
Some MK commentators are pretty terrible.
I'm yet to see a bad Smash commentator tho. The few times I watched smash tournaments (mostly EVO and APEX), they were all great
Yes, Gootecks is terrible! I remember him commentating a SFxT set and spending the whole set wondering why certain player picked Ryu and complaining how he was trash in that game...the whole set! And you guys know a SFxT set takes a damn long time!
direct_quote
Member
Naw Mike Ross and Combofiend is a pretty good combination. Mike Ross and Gootecks is a bad combination. Heck anyone and Combofiend is a good combination.
I'm just happy to see that there's a lot of great commentators out there that each bring something different to the table. It's tough trying to be informative, engaging, and entertaining while talking about a game with alot going on to an audience who wants to pick you apart for every little thing imaginable and say the worst things about you and your momma, so I really admire the ones who do it well.
Some of the great ones can commentate multiple games and or take a game that's usually boring to watch and keep it interesting.
People should give commentary a try before being too critical about the ones who actually do a good job because there's plenty of bad ones out there that vulture the mic, ride off of someone else's nuts and steal their style, have 0 chemistry with the person they're commentating with, talk over their co-commentator, don't speak into the mic, get on the mic and say nothing because they don't have a clue what's going on, and or say the same crap over and over again.
MK has some really bad ones that say 50/50 all the damn time.
Smash consistently has some great commentators, but the game itself is still boring for me to watch unless it's Prog and D1 commentating a top 8.
Mike and Gootecks are better as hosts and alright when you pair them separately with the right people, like Mike and Combofiend for example.
But you still have events who want to put on a professional product, which is where James fits in.
Some of the great ones can commentate multiple games and or take a game that's usually boring to watch and keep it interesting.
People should give commentary a try before being too critical about the ones who actually do a good job because there's plenty of bad ones out there that vulture the mic, ride off of someone else's nuts and steal their style, have 0 chemistry with the person they're commentating with, talk over their co-commentator, don't speak into the mic, get on the mic and say nothing because they don't have a clue what's going on, and or say the same crap over and over again.
MK has some really bad ones that say 50/50 all the damn time.
Smash consistently has some great commentators, but the game itself is still boring for me to watch unless it's Prog and D1 commentating a top 8.
Mike and Gootecks are better as hosts and alright when you pair them separately with the right people, like Mike and Combofiend for example.
But you still have events who want to put on a professional product, which is where James fits in.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I'm going to prop up my scene and say that our Atlanta locals have pretty good commentary.
Wong, Yipes, Scamby, Neokarsh, a Japanese player I've never heard of, and more. Hope I've still got enough in me and a fortunate enough bracket placement to gatekeep somebody.
"God's Beard!"
Member
If you're a competitor, Justin Wong is the best commentator. Dude is nostradamus.
sixteen-bit
Member
dat
500K
he said he was gonna retire next year but still, no one believes him considering that sf5 is released next year.
"God's Beard!"
Member
Yeah, last I heard he got married to a porn star and disappeared or something.
He tweeted this back in April after losing at NWM
https://twitter.com/PR_Balrog/status/592052608757436416
"God's Beard!"
Member
Didn't he get up on stage at EVO last year and say he was sick or something? I remember something like that.
Do you guys think a Persona 5 Arena is a shoe-in? I can't see P5 not doing well.
FGW | From 80K to 500K
I have nothing to add to the commentator discussion, but I did want to ask if anyone else feels like sometimes UltraDavid just sounds like he wants to strangle James? Like I imagine they're friends and all, but it seems like there are moments where James gets on UltraDavid's nerves so bad and he can't say anything because it's a live broadcast.