Over at MTV News, the ever-smart Stephen Totilo has a new feature about audio commentaries in games up, and it has some interesting words from Valve on HL2's commentary goals.

It's explained of Half-Life 2: Episode 1, as 15% of you who've played the game probably know: "Some of the commentary nodes in "Episode One" show off the unique abilities of gaming technology. Activating one balloon whips the camera around to focus on the action being described. Another balloon cues up certain animations that are being discussed."

But there's scoop on upcoming making-of goals: "Johnson said Valve is hoping to improve the commentary system for next year's "Episode Two" with a feature that allows players to view multiple iterations of an in-game object or character as commentary plays, so gamers can see how things literally changed shape during the course of development. They're also hoping to support their commentary system in multiplayer matches of "Episode Two" companion product "Team Fortress 2."

[Also, if you'd like to just read Totilo's MTV News game stories and filter out the GameSpot-syndicated stories and the other randomness, he's set up a new blog that links to his own stories. Which I personally find useful, since it has RSS!]