izigame.me

The downvote option on Steam does not mean that a game is bad. It merely means the reviewer in question doesn't recommend it. A game can have some good qualities but not quite be worth a recommendation. The Stanley Parable is best described as a game that is almost good, but not quite... and therefore, you could possibly end up feeling like you wasted your time with it. There were moments in the game where I thought I was playing the best game ever... and then the game never actually went anywhere. It's like a song that's almost good, but not quite... and then it gets stuck in your head. If a song like that gets stuck in your head, we call it an earworm. The Stanley Parable does not get permanently stuck in your head, but it's kind of like the earworm of videogames. The game has little in the way of gameplay beyond making decisions and walking. Please note, that I do not mind this. I can wholeheartedly recommend a game called "Her Story," which doesn't even have the walking -- and is just decisions! So, I like those sorts of games. But this is where we run into problems with The Stanley Parable.
You see, without much in the way of scenery, the initially-interesting walking (this was built on Half-Life 2, after all, so it feels and looks nice), can't hold up the game itself. No scenery = the walking alone can't sustain the game.
As such, the decisions must be interesting and carry weight. And those decisions do indeed feel like they carry weight throughout the first part of your experience - and they feel like they carry so much weight that the game actually seems like one of the best ever. At first. But those decisions only carry weight due to the story, and you eventually find out that there is nothing in the story. There are no characters nor plot. This isn't bad in and of itself. But what that means is that you're left with the journey and the message.
The journey doesn't quite satisfy, because the "good moments" kind of collapse in on themselves due to the message. There's even a path that talks about the journey being important, but this overt speaking about the journey only works if the journey continues to be good throughout the rest of the playthrough. If it doesn't (and it doesn't) then the game would have been better off not talking about the journey.
Therefore, all that is left is the message... and no message ever quite comes, besides showing the way narrative structures can occur in videogames and questioning a player's desire for choice. But we don't need to be shown the way games' narratives are structured. We all know this stuff. If someone didn't, then I suppose they could enjoy this game. But most people get it. And The Stanley Parable actually ignores on of the main reasons we like choice in videogames. It's not just to satisfy our own whims. It's to make the world feel real. When I do something that is "not intended" by the game, I don't do it to break the game or to satisfy myself. I do it to make virtual experience feel real. In real life, I could theoretically make many choices that I would never even remotely entertain. I don't entertain tons of "choices" in real life, because I know real life is real. I don't need to prove anything to myself. I just live it. But in games, I might choose to "go down a different path," or "do something out of order," precisely because a game does not feel as real as real life does. Since a game does not feel as real as real life, if I then focus on my "choice" more and make absurd decisions, and then the game... lets me... then all of a sudden the game doesn't feel as fictional. It feels like "Wow, just like reality, there is actually more here." And in other games like Fable, since I know there are consequences to my choices, I don't need to make as absurd of choices. The feeling of reality is baked in.
Imagine making a game studying the effect of choice in games that doesn't actually address that -- and when it does, it actually ridicules the notion by telling us that our choices aren't real and the game designer (or the narrator) still has control. Imagine that. Imagine how absurd that would be. Imagine how much the "point of choice in games" would be missed. We all know that choices in games are fake and somebody else is still in control. The point is that making those choices makes the game feel a little more real than if we didn't. Pointing out the fakeness of this would be like constantly pointing out in a novel that somebody else wrote this novel and is deliberately toying with our emotions via certain story structure and character development choices. I'm sure there's a novel like that. I'm sure it's revered by some literary scholar or scholars. But will such a novel ever rise to the level of Don Quixote? No. Don Quixote (one of the best novels ever) pointed out the absurdity of prior forms of literature... and invented a new form in the process (at least, it was new for the West). There was a breakthrough. With The Stanley Parable, there is no breakthrough. It's like Don Quixote, if Don Quixote had somehow never risen to the status of a "novel" and somehow remained a "chivalric romance." It wouldn't quite be good. That's The Stanley Parable. And the glory of the "failed attempt" doesn't quite come through, either. Nor does the failure state anything. It just fails.
There's one last point about this game. Upon editing a typo in this review it occurred to me that if it wasn't for The Stanley Parable, I wouldn't be writing this review. I wouldn't be thinking about Don Quixote. I wouldn't be then thinking about the difference between videogames and chilvaric romances -- nor about how videogames are naturally like novels due to their realism and choice -- they never had to go through an earlier development period like literature did.
That's something, right?
No. The only reason I am thinking about these things is literally because I'm thinking about what The Stanley Parable failed to address and cover. And it failed to address those things, when it was talking about the very topic. It's like a paper submitted in a class that answers the wrong question. The Stanley Parable does not get credit for spurring these thoughts in me, when it was its failures that spurred these thoughts -- and when I had already thought most of these thoughts in the past.
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Now, the demo is something I could almost recommend, but not quite. It questions the point of demos, and actually admits that it isn't a real demo -- but it ends up being a demo, anyway. If the real game had been designed to capitalize on some of the demo's deeper themes, then that would have been better. But I believe the game was made first as a Half-Life 2 mod. So, no demo!
If The Stanley Parable claimed that it wasn't a game and it wasn't quite art, then hilariously enough, it would feel like an even better game and feel like better art than what it is. That's the nice quality of the demo. But even the demo ends up failing, because it feels incomplete without the game... and the game feels like a waste of time -- which, in turn, makes the demo feel like a waste..
If you play the demo, and you can't help but get the full game, then ok! Who knows, maybe you'll love it like everyone else does. I loved it at first, but now I realized I lost 3 hours of my life for nothing (more if you count the demo). And I think this game could be considered exploitative of the player's time in one area and maybe more (unlike Don Quixote).
So, if you don't mind risking the three hours, then fine. But I cannot recommend that you do so. Of course, if someone went in thinking about all of the things I mentioned, then maybe the game would be better. But a reading a bad review should not be a pre-requisite for a game!
Hopefully, by some miracle, the creator of this game will see this review and then be spurred on to create something better. The director of the game does have talent. Maybe he can have a breakthrough, someday.