When Valve started to put ‘director commentary’ into their games, it opened the conversation of game design to a wider audience. Personally, it allowed me to enjoy the game even more than my first playthrough. It’s a wonderful bonus, and I’m very thankful to Valve for them.
Gerard Daleny, of the blog Binary Swan, is assembling ‘The Wasteland Commentaries.’ It will be a mod for Fallout 3, and will include locational commentary by the gaming community into the game itself – much like what Valve has done. The comments will have a wide range; anywhere from “anecdotes, commentary, analysis or even humor relating to their experience with Fallout 3.”
This is a really nifty idea, and a fantastic way of serving a lot of particularly dense discussion into a more savory dish. A lot of people, including myself, can get lost or distracted while reading something that tends to be more academic in scope. Adding an audio/visual anchor to the process could be a novel way of including folks who are stronger at learning things spatially.