The Stanley Parable
Year: 2011
Rating: NR
Time Played: ~2 hours
The Stanley Parable is one of those odd video games that defies definition. Is it a walking simulator? Is it a choose-your-own-adventure? Is it a meta examination of itself? In the end, it truly is a combination of all three, but it’s also so much more than that. While most video games have an objective you’re trying to accomplish, The Stanley Parable is content with giving you the illusion of free will, then smirking as everything unravels in hilarious fashion.
On my first playthrough of The Stanley Parable, I let the narrator guide me all the way to the end of the story. It was an uplifting ending that the narrator’s voice prescribed, seeing as he told me what to do the whole time. However, there were no end credits after reaching this ending. Teleported back to the start of my journey, I progressed through this liminal space again, except now I knew what would happen. As soon as I deviated from the narrator’s path, the comedy began. If I went ahead of the narrator’s script, he’d let me know about it. The snarky quips that attempted to drive me back to the main narrative amused me for another few playthroughs.
Then things went wrong. I laughed as the narrator forcefully tried to fix the scenario I had broken so many times before. In these later runs of the game, I did finally find the end credits—integrated into the game itself. I’m fairly certain I haven’t seen all the iterations the game offers, but it thoroughly entertained me for the few hours I played it. While your experience with this game may vary, it’s still worth sitting down and playing for an evening. At the very least, you’ll get a good chuckle from its meta choose-your-own-adventure gameplay.
A hilariously meta walking simulator, I give The Stanley Parable 5.0 stars out of 5.
