The Cake Goes To Portal’s Commentary

The best part of Orange Box’s Portal is, without a doubt, playing it. But the optional developer commentary comes in a close second. For those of you who’ve played the game but not taken the time to walk through the levels and click on the cleanly-interfaced word bubbles, we urge you to. Consider it the equivalent of a DVD commentary, but with the directors explaining how they subtly manipulated your perception instead of some actor’s coke habit. You’ll feel like the luckiest lab rat in town. But Portal got us wondering, why don’t more games include commentaries? If the industry wants to upsell us with special limited editions, why not look beyond the Master Chief helmets and DVD documentaries? The same goes for DLC. Why limit the imagination to strategical tactics and bonus missions when content can be offered to enhance a gamer’s appreciation of what they already have…requiring less of an investment on everyone’s part?

So studios, if you are listening, we want more commentaries. Let us know what geniuses you are, the impetus behind every little spec of bloom lighting. Because while the 10-minute documentaries are nice, why not exploit the interactive model that you already do so well?