Getting to review The Stanley Parable is something that is really cool. What originally started out as a mod for Half-Life, eventually spawned into its very own game. This is a game that at first seems so unassuming and you wonder what all the fuss is about. However, after about five minutes in you realize that this is one very special game indeed.
How to Download The Stanley Parable
You can download the full game or its demo From Steam. Watch out also for a bundle The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide, which contains an additional original game by the creator of the title we review here.
The Game Review
The basic idea of the story is that you play as Stanley who is an office worker in a pretty mundane and boring job. One day, all of your workmates are gone and there is an eerie feeling around. This along with a “narrator” drive Stanley to go and figure out what the heck is going on.
The plot of the game is rather hard to talk about as The Stanley Parable has some awesome references to other games that I really do not want to spoil for you. However, much of the game is made up of the narrator telling you what to do or at the very least trying to tell you what to do.
You see at its heart if you ask me this is a game that is all about “choices” and what you do with them. The narrator will tell you to do something, but does that mean you do it without question? If he tells you to go in the door on the left, but you go in the one on the right what will happen? The Stanley Parable is full of choices like this and that is what makes it such an intriguing kind of game.
The narrator is awesome and it is very interesting the way he can change on a whim. From trying to reason with Stanley to flat out issuing threats. You are never 100 percent sure of what your actions are going to cause and this makes playing the game such an interesting experience. You will often find yourself back at the title screen, having to make another go of it, but this is all part of the game!
When it comes to the presentation of the game while not mind-blowing, it works. I like how real the office looks and in general things do look decent enough. The sound design while sparse also works.
One thing that I have to get across about this game is the sense of humor that it has. Some people may have the assumption that this is a rather pretentious game, but that is not the case. There is some great humor here and it is very dark and dry, so you will find yourself smiling a whole lot as you play through the game.
In all, I feel that The Stanley Parable is a very interesting and fun experience. You have different endings to experience and each playthrough is short enough that you can do one in a single sitting. With a great sense of humor and an interesting take on the way that a story is told in a video game. I really do recommend that you check this one out, but I will say that the less you know about the story going in, the more memorable the experience is going to be.
