I’ve seen a lot of grumbling about whether episodic content is worth $20, and what I’d like to know is this: where were you clowns back when they started charging $30 for expansion packs? Because that made me really sad, and clowns maybe could have cheered me up.

But now I’m happy again; a little because you can get Half-Life 2: Episode 1 for a normal price, but mostly because there are no boats or dune buggies in it, just a lot of high-quality action. Not that I don’t like boats or dune buggies— well actually, dune buggies are pretty stupid no matter what. If you think about it, sand is just not that interesting. There aren’t any man-eating sharks or whale-wrestling squid in sand, and if you spray it at someone at high pressure, it actually hurts them really badly instead of being the one kinda funny part of their struggle for civil rights.

Anyway, the problem with those parts of Half-Life 2 was that they went on way too long. In fact, if you listen to Episode 1’s commentary, they’ll talk about how they wanted to make sure to avoid “fatigue”. They don’t explicitly say they’re sorry about the dune buggy and its twin messages of boredom and racial intimidation, but it’s only the first episode. We’ll see.

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