The Stanley Parable
Galactic Cafe | PC & OS X
The empty post on Medium starts with the placeholder text “Write your story”, which in the context of The Stanley Parable, is a bit ironic. What is your “story”? By writing some words down are you creating a new story or just telling one that has already been written? These are the kinds of questions that abound in The Stanley Parable.
Writing a review of the game is almost impossible to do without giving something away. At a very, very high level, you control Stanley (I think) and navigate through a surreal world, where everything is narrated in a fantastic British accent by Kevan Brighting. I’m not sure I’d put him on above of the voice acting for Wheatley from Portal 2, or the narrator from Bastion, but he’s definitely up there. But I digress.
Warning: Light spoilers follow — if you are at all interested in this game, I recommend playing it for yourself first.
The Stanley Parable is a game focused on narrative, and the reality (or un-reality) of typical first person shooters on rails. Games that pretend to present choice and player agency where there really is none. And so it is with this game: your actions are narrated as if you are following a story (like Bastion), but you are free to deviate from the script (often with unintended and hilarious consequences). It is ultimately a fairly short game, unless you really, really want to complete one of the endings, but not in negative way.
It is perhaps the least “game-like” game I have played — your actions have some meaning, but only to poke fun at the scripted nature of most single-player games these days. In some ways it made me feel a little like I did when playing Antichamber (a tale for another time), in the sense that my preconceived notions of what should be happening, was most definitely not. I lack the necessary philosophical terminology to fully describe the twisted metaphysical journey it puts you through, but I can wholeheartedly recommend it.
(Also the Steam achievements are hilarious, and you should definitely try to complete them all.)
