Max took a look at the recent releases and despaired. There wasn't a single horror title out there, let alone a single interesting looking title. It seemed developers were holding out until November to release their massive Triple A titles like Fallout 4, Battlefront, and Just Cause 3 in time for Christmas. So he decided to look back at The Stanley Parable instead.
Seriously: after being completely blown away by The Beginners Guide last week, my mind is still trying to recover. This is like when BioShock Infinite came out in 2013 and everything else seemed to stop. It wasn't a masterpiece, but there's nothing like it. It's a game you can neither love nor dislike - creating this vacuum in which all independent thought is sucked into. I don't know if it's one of the best game's I've played - all I know is that I've played through it at least five times already.
I was hoping that Halloween would be a month dedicated to either retrospectives of horror games or reviews of brand new horror games. But it seems Steam climaxed with SOMA before October had even begun, and now I'm once again left with several gaps in my schedule. So: it's time to look at Davey's other game.
Well, the 2013 remake of the other game. The Stanley Parable was originally released in 2011 as a Half Life 2 mod. I don't know what's more impressive: the fact that Wavey used the Half Life 2 engine to create a game with no NPC's, or that the 2013 remake uses the exact same engine but looks great.
The original mod is free to play so long as you have Half Life 2 - and if you don't have Half Life 2 then sorry but you're an idiot. Not only are you missing out on a good game but you're missing out on a fascinating modding scene. It's not like the Skyrim scene where it's all about either fixing the countless gameplay issues or adding pop-culture rubbish. The Half Life 2 modding scene comprises of either fan made expansion packs or total conversions that toy with the very nature of gaming.
One of these mods is Polaris: a game where you go on a date, wander around a wood, and then get dumped. Despite a standalone remake announced in 2013, developer Robert Yang still hasn't updated the website. And this makes me sad because Yang is a brilliant developer who just needs to release a masterpiece. I'm also sad because Yang promised full-frontal male nudity.
The other game is The Stanley Parable. You play/don't play as Stanley, an office worker who pushes buttons all day. All this time, a narrator (voiced by the then-unknown Kevan Brighting) tells us the story - but as the game hands control over to you, The Narrator instructs you where to go. You're then faced with a choice: obey The Narrator and get the happy ending, or deviate and see what happens.
If you're in any way interested in this game, then log onto Steam and download the free demo. I've said it once, but like a broken self-checkout I'll say it again: it's the greatest video game demo ever.
OK, I didn't just reinstall The Stanley Parable because The Beginners Guide got me thinking about it. It also got me thinking because the 'walking simulator' genre has kind of exploded in the past few years.
The 'walking simulator' genre annoys me, because I've always said that story is the most important part of a game - but many people have taken this too literally. Ultimately, your gameplay needs to be fused with the narrative. You can't just stop the game and dump exposition on us every few yards before setting us on our way again, and you can't drag us along a single pathway hoping we'll tag along. You need to either allow the player to explore things for him/herself - or, even better; have the game be influenced by our actions.
This is where The Stanley Parable succeeds. Unlike The Beginners Guide, which was all about letting us explore an auteur's vision whilst a narration guides us through, The Stanley Parable is all about either following or disobeying The Narrator. What seems like a simple walking simulator soon becomes a game of staggering choice. It's best not knowing how many endings there are to this game, because once you've completed the 'straight' ending and turn back to look at all the other forks in the road that lead to all sorts of shenanigans then the game truly comes alive - as you try to wrap your head around just how many ways you can mess the game up. It's like if Deus Ex actually knew it was filled with quirky bugs.
Except, and here's what makes The Stanley Parable so great: you're still ultimately trapped in a game. I've only managed to break the game twice - and this is after hours of trying. Even when you manage to clip out of a window and think you've outwitted the game, it turns out The Narrator anticipated you'd do this. Not only that, but the game goes on to mock you for trying to outsmart it when you've actually just made the game unplayable.
So it's not only satirising the walking simulator genre but it's satirising games as a whole. Considering how Mad Max proved that open world sandbox games have become stale and generic, it's even more gratifying going back to a game that shows us how even when a game claims to offer infinite possibilities - you're still stuck within a digitally generated environment. Even when games such as Skyrim gives us so many choices that it bugs out and crashes all the time; you're still playing by the games rules. You can't kill certain characters. You can't negotiate with Alduin. You can't usurp both General Tullius and Ulfic Stormcloak to become king yourself. You can't destroy the Thieves Guild. You can't even destroy buildings. It's impossible for a game to offer the ability to do everything because it's impossible to create everything. If you sought to create an infinite world then it would take infinity to do it.
Like The Beginners Guide, The Stanley Parable isn't a satisfying game. It's hilarious, it's mind-blowing, but it's not satisfying. Part of the reason for this is that the game infinitely loops. There is no 'The End' screen followed by a ceremonial boot to the main menu. It's not like Skyrim where after defeating the boss you can walk back home and have a well-deserved nap before getting up to farm soul gems. Here you reach one of the many endings, you get a loading screen, and then it's back to the start. The only way to beat the game is to push escape and quit.
Even when you obey The Narrator and get the ideal ending - it doesn't feel right. Because you've done exactly what a literal voice in your head has told you to do, you don't feel like you've earned your ending. You're free from a 'Mind Control Facility,' but your mind's still being controlled by a Narrator.
Meanwhile, breaking the plot never ends well. Sometimes the plot then works against you, other times it gives up, but most of the time it goes completely bananas. 'The Confusion Ending' remains my favourite just because of how it tricks you and leaves you trying to second-guess the game - all whilst jokes are being rapidly thrown at you.
Each ending offers a completely different explanation to what's going on, with a completely different Narrator. He's constantly aware he's in a video-game, but sometimes he's in complete control and other times he's just as much of a pawn as you are despite him having the power to either entrap you in his domain or just destroy everything. In one ending he's heartbroken, in another he's furious, another he's bitter, vengeful, confused, mocking, maniacal - he's completely influenced by your decision. Yet you're influenced by his decision also. Stanley symbolises the player whilst The Narrator is symbolic of the game itself - and both entities cannot exist without each-other.
Again: please play this. It's deceptively plain, but actually it's infinite. I'm still finding jokes I didn't notice before, and I still haven't completed it to 100%. I've sunk twelve hours into a game you can complete by just shutting yourself in your office. I actually wish someone would erase my memory of The Stanley Parable just so I could experience it all again. The 'Video Games' ending still makes me laugh so loud it annoys my neighbours.
