Stanley Parable - I don't get it *spoilers*

[artemicion]

(Might not want to read if you haven't played, possible spoilers)

Had funny bits, but not $15 worth of funny bits.

Tried to Google the game to see if I missed anything, but everyone treats the game as one giant spoiler and there isn't much detail. I played about an hour and saw the "Freedom" ending, the one with the museum, one where there was a white board describing a bunch of different endings... Got bored and stopped playing.

Did I miss anything? I kinda get the whole control theme going on. I just don't think it's terribly meaningful.

I suspect this is one of those games that you have to be a hipster to enjoy (like Gone Home).

 

[KidNiki1]

what were you expecting it to be?

i got the game on sale on steam, so i paid a lot less than you. even so, i find it so far to be pretty funny and entertaining. i'm not that far in, but it seems exactly like what i expected it to be from the trailers i saw.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

There's something like 20 endings, so yeah you missed a lot. Some play throughs are significantly faster than others depending on when you end.

 

[mmntech]

I suspect this is one of those games that you have to be a hipster to enjoy (like Gone Home).

Just because it's a game, don't mean it has to include running & gunning around pwning n00bs.

I haven't played it but I've seen the let's play videos and it's very well done. Especially for something that started life as a Half Life 2 mod. Voice acting and humour are top notch.

 

[KeithTalent]

what were you expecting it to be?

i got the game on sale on steam, so i paid a lot less than you. even so, i find it so far to be pretty funny and entertaining. i'm not that far in, but it seems exactly like what i expected it to be from the trailers i saw.

This. I have played through and hit about four or five of the endings so far. I'll go back to it in a bit, but it's about the silly humour and whatnot, not so much about the game play itself.

KT

 

[artemicion]

I guess it's a value thing to me. It was pretty funny but to me it wasn't $15 funny. Guess I should've just watched the Lets Play videos instead. Plus a bunch of the reviews made the game sound super meaningful and whatnot when it really wasn't.

 

[Stringjam]

I suspect this is one of those games that you have to be a hipster to enjoy (like Gone Home).

I'm just a country boy and I enjoyed both games.

 

[pong lenis]

It's not really a video game, more like an interactive audiobook.
The main problem is it thinks it's funny when it most often isn't.

 

[Topweasel]

I'm just a country boy and I enjoyed both games.

Something like this. If Nintendo taught us anything about video games it has taught us that not every game has to have some incredible fighting system or or huge cinematics to be a good game. I would have expected that after the success of Tt's TWD that even "gamers" were moving away from requiring traditional game-play.

Gone home is all about ambiance. A real life kind of story about going to a creepy house expecting a full family and finding nobody. Sure it plays on expectations, but that's the point.

Spoiler

The fact that it's a simple story with a simple answer is the real life answer. It's like a scooby doo or Psych episode.

 

[KidNiki1]

ok, having put some more time into this game, i LOVE IT! i have literally laughed out loud at least three times in the last 45 minutes. if you haven't played enough to get to

Spoiler

the world leaderboard, the red door vs blue door, the baby game, the minecraft level or the portal level

which are things i found only recently, you havent played enough.

who knows what else funny is there. i'm excited to find out, i can tell you that. also, getting the 430 achievement is pretty funny.

this game is awesome, lol!!

 

[Savatar]

From what I've read, it's like a 'choose your own adventure' book, except in video game format. That sounds like a marvel concept, as I liked those books as a kid. That's kind of what they meant in the trailers when they say 'You are Stanley... or are you?!', and so on. Although I haven't played it (it's still too costly for me based on my understanding of what the game is), some reviews have said it's a little short. At least its praise from critics seems more well-deserved than Gone Home, which supposedly just got the critical praise for LGBT themes (?!).

 

[Kindjal]

After seeing all the positive press, I bought the game when it was on sale in December. I played it for a while and got most of the endings and most of the achievements. While I found it amusing, I didn't really enjoy it that much and uninstalled it within a week.

I have several other indie titles that I've bought after seeing great reviews (FTL, Mark of the Ninja, Papers, Please) and have had mixed reactions to those games too. I still have Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to try. I stayed away from "Gone Home" because I was "indied out" after all the Steam sales.

 

[artemicion]

I've seen most of the endings now.

Spoiler

Broom closet ending

is probably my favorite. Though if I were to nitpick, after you've seen about half the endings, it gets tedious looking for the rest because there's quite a few drawn out segments and you never really know if you're on the path to a new ending or just retreading one you've already seen. I gave up and just consulted a guide on the internet that tells you how to get all the endings.

Ultimately, I'm still disappointed based on the glowing reviews I read for the game. To me, this game highlights the shortcomings of the game review industry. If I got this game for free (like most reviewers probably did) I probably would have thought it was awesome. I guess game review sites aren't very good at judging $ value, since they get everything for free.

Also, I'm starting to feel professional reviewers give high scores to indie games just because they are a fresh change of pace from the typical games they play and review 8+ hours out of the day. I suppose if I had to play and review very video game release under the sun (good and crappy), Stanley Parable would be like manna from heaven.

 

[Lil Frier]

Yeah, I can't bring myself to buy indie games. I was going to get Brothers during the Holiday Sale because people talked about how good it was. However, after hearing it lasts 2-3 hours, I didn't see it worth even $7.50 (considering that's about what I spent on all 3 Max Payne games).

I was going to get The Stanley Parable, and I even played its demo. However, after the demo, I felt like I was just in a game that wasn't a game, was trying to be different for the sake of being different, and tried to imitate Portal for its comedy, in a way. I ended up skipping it, and I feel that I made the right decision.

In general, it's HARD to sell me on an indie game. I got Minecraft, and I got sick of it after about a week of heavy play. I'm just not the kind of person who it was made for, and it perplexes me how people get into it so much. I'm not exactly a go-for-graphics person, but the indie trend of "hand-drawn" stuff and this and that doesn't impress me. I play and enjoy older games with no-longer-good graphics (like N64 stuff, and I started Half-Life a couple of weeks back), but I admittedly have a hard time selling myself on games from 2013 that offer graphics I could find 15 years ago. That whole "charming" visuals thing is a turn-off to me.