Good job Jason Lee! - Page 19

On October 23 2010 11:36 wuddersup wrote:
Jason Lee + AnyKnowledgeableProGamer = Good combo

On October 23 2010 12:57 Shanba wrote:
I didn't mind too much. I'd have liked him not to make the really obvious mistakes - I know the point has been made a couple of times, but there were occasions were he seemed literally clueless. I think if he improved that aspect of his casting he would be great as a play-by-play guy, but as is it was frustrating that the colour commentators were constantly having to correct him. I mean, if a football (soccer) commentator had to be reminded that the reason the guy picking up the ball wasn't penalised was because he was the goalkeeper and hence was allowed to do that, you wouldn't be praising his professionalism. But he's almost there.

On October 23 2010 13:06 Slago wrote:


dude quit comparing sports casters to starcraft casters, you look at any sports guy on any channel anywhere, he's professional, calm yet remaining exciting, unbiased, and knowledgable. Look at any sc casters, almost all biased, very unproffesional, super hyper, but knowledgable,

the only thing jason lee doesn't have is knowledge at that is easily taught while the other qualities are very hard if not impossible to teach.

On October 23 2010 13:35 Shanba wrote:

Why shouldn't we compare them? I don't see any reason we should be holding them to lesser standards. Indeed, it seems like you agree with that given that you want the casters to be calmer, unbiased and professional - well I want them to be at least somewhat knowledgeable, too.

Also, I believe the question was how did he do, not how much potential does he have. Frankly, he has rough edges. He may very well be a very good caster in the future, but the gaps in his knowledge made the casts less enjoyable.

Further, sports casters often don't have all the traits that you're ascribing to them, and that's often a good thing. If you watch international sporting competitions, the commentators frequently pull for their nation's athletes to do well. For example, the bbc always highlights the performances of british athletes for example at the olympics. There's no reason this is necessarily a bad thing - I imagine people in britain watching england - germany on the bbc at the world cup weren't getting all put off by the fact that the commentators were obviously massively biased in favour of england, because the vast majority of the viewership were also biased. And similarly at the GSL, it doesn't bother me if there's bias towards the foreigners, for example, because I'm also rooting for the foreigners! YMMV, of course.

As for calmness, well... it can be good. On the other hand, if starcraft is a form of entertainment, I'm going to favour entertaining casts. That's one of the reasons I like husky (and I know that's an unpopular viewpoint on this forum) - his casts are always super entertaining, if not in depth and highly knowledgeable or whatever. I don't mind the casters getting excited so much, but I appreciate that not everyone shares my view - but if you're asking for my personal subjective opinions, then that's something I'm going to highlight.

Finally, professionalism is great, and I agree it can get irritating if all you ever get is injokes or whatever, but that doesn't mean it has to be sterile. If you can get some good chemistry between the commentators, that again makes the whole experience more entertaining. Again I'm thinking back to the beeb here, but Motson and Lawrenson are always more fun to listen to than two people who barely know each other and have been thrown together just on that particular day.

All in all I thought he was pretty good, and definitely competent in all areas, but it would definitely have improved the coverage if he had known a bit more about the game. Even then, though, from some of the hyperbole about him in this thread you'd think he was the second coming - even his supposedly excellent voice I didn't find that exciting, though it was certainly listenable.

/2 cents

EDIT: Oh, and a general note; in a complex game like SC2 I think it's more important for the commentators to at least have a grasp on the fundamentals as they're probbaly going to have to lead some of the viewers through the strategy somewhat. In most sports it's immediately obvious what's going on, whereas in sc2 it's not so - anyone who's played the game knows a fusion core means bcs, but that's not so if you've never played before. So making that kind of mistake actually makes the casting less accessible to the general public, despite the better presentation/voice/professionalism/whatever.

On October 24 2010 11:50 ilmman wrote:
Tasteless will say the game is over after 3 minutes into the game... Its like saying theres no point watching the game that will go for another 30 minutes no more because its over because of the first 3 minutes.....