Jimquisition: Jimquisition Awards 2013 - The Stanley Parable

[Mike Richards]

I finally played the Stanley Parable and I kind of disliked it to be totally honest.
It's basically a game where you try to find all the different paths in the story. It's practically a VN. What pisses me off more is people pretending it's indescribable. It's not.

You walk through an office, a narrator interacts with you, and you try and find all the interactions. That's all the game is. It has a lot to say about the state of gaming, player agency, the notion of what a "game" is and the like; but the entire game is just traversing a DFA and setting flags. It's a bog standard decision tree with some funny narration, the end. A waste of money.

I dare argue Clannad has more complicated branches in it.

Clannad is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

The Stanley Parable is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

GTA V is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

Peggle is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

Persona 4 is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

This very forum is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

Super Mario Galaxy is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

Max Payne is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

Journey is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

Portal is a game in which one pushes...

I believe you mean "patterns", not "patters".

I did mean patters. I did not mean patters.

Seriously though, my bad haha

 

[Thanatos2k]

Looks like this is one of those love it or hate it games that we see pop up every now and then. I'm personally wary about dropping money for a game that gives me nothing but wit, though I'll probably download the demo. Just a question though for those who praise it: is there anything more to it than cleverly subverting expectations of a game? I can read about that in about a dozen different places without paying for it.

The Stanley Parable makes you examine yourself and why you do things in games. It is absolutely a valuable experience you can get no where else.

 

[Banzaiman]

The Stanley Parable makes you examine yourself and why you do things in games. It is absolutely a valuable experience you can get no where else.

If that's the case, then I think I can understand its appeal a bit more. Sounds like that one defining bit in Spec Ops: The Line, where it subverts expectations and points at a videogame habit that's kind of nasty. Might try to make room for the Parable in my library then.

 

[Weaver]

I finally played the Stanley Parable and I kind of disliked it to be totally honest.
It's basically a game where you try to find all the different paths in the story. It's practically a VN. What pisses me off more is people pretending it's indescribable. It's not.

You walk through an office, a narrator interacts with you, and you try and find all the interactions. That's all the game is. It has a lot to say about the state of gaming, player agency, the notion of what a "game" is and the like; but the entire game is just traversing a DFA and setting flags. It's a bog standard decision tree with some funny narration, the end. A waste of money.

I dare argue Clannad has more complicated branches in it.

Clannad is a game in which one pushes buttons on a control interface and watches an array of miniscule lights ignite in complex patters that our minds assign some meaning to.

I mean, the world might not even exist at all. Our minds might just be floating in a matrix like construct. How can we even know anything is real? [/Descartes].

I mean, food is just stuff you chew and it goes into your stomach to power your body.

More to the point, I didn't like the meaning my mind assigned to the Stanley Parable.
You can art student away anythings faults if you want.

 

[ender1986]

Just played about an hour of Stanley Parable. It's one of those games that, if I was still in high school, I'd be "Whoa, this game is like so deep I like don't even like understand it but it's SOOOOO cool." As an adult, I'm like "Dafuq?" I think it's highly pretentious.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Oh, Stephen Fry does the narration.

No he doesn't. Narration is from one Kevan Brighting.

Oh... This is awkward.
I guess I could have figured that out if I listened to more of it (Or looked it up)

I only watched about 5 minutes of gameplay, but he did a good job narrating it.

 

[linforcer]

The game that was missing from this list for me was "Papers, Please"

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Oh, Stephen Fry does the narration.

No he doesn't. Narration is from one Kevan Brighting.

Oh... This is awkward.
I guess I could have figured that out if I listened to more of it (Or looked it up)

I only watched about 5 minutes of gameplay, but he did a good job narrating it.

Voice did sound familiar, I looked it up thinking I knew him from somewhere but nope.

 

[Do4600]

Truly one of the worst recommendations I have ever seen.

Who, going into this video cold, would come out thinking "That video totally makes me want to play The Stanley Parable based on the given evidence of the game's quality presented here."

If you played it you would realize that showing anything else of the game would be a huge spoiler and it's so good that everybody who has played it realizes that it's an unwritten rule that you should never explain or show any more of the game than the beginning, because it would be cruel to not allow the player to experience it for themselves for the first time. Really, it's incredible, I bought it four days ago and after an hour I knew it was my game of the year, it totally blew away everything else I had played.

 

[Do4600]

The Stanley Parable makes you examine yourself and why you do things in games. It is absolutely a valuable experience you can get no where else.

If that's the case, then I think I can understand its appeal a bit more. Sounds like that one defining bit in Spec Ops: The Line, where it subverts expectations and points at a videogame habit that's kind of nasty. Might try to make room for the Parable in my library then.

Actually, I think Spec Ops:The Line is really a new direction for video games, I think it's nearly as important as D.W. Griffith's work on creating an expressive language using editing and filming to tell more of a story.

Spec Ops:The Line, engages the player not only in a written story arc, but it engages the player in a deepening moral and philosophical arc that runs parallel to the story. I think that quality is going to revolutionize video games. There is no other way of telling a story that allows the audience to interact with the story, movies can't, music can't, theater can't, video games can. So far we've experimented with moral choice in games like Bioshock, Dragon Age, etc, but Spec Ops: The Line really tests your ability to make those choices and then attacks and forces you to defend those choices in light of the consequences, and as a result you end up examining the core reasons why you made those choices.

Up until two days ago, I had one game that I thought was using interactive media to it's fullest extent, Spec Ops: The Line. Now I've put The Stanley Parable next to it, and now I have a short list, and I'm waiting for more.

 

[animeh1star1a]

neat game i guess. never played, i might when the fuss dies down and the price drops a bit more. Im curious though as to whether or not jim will be giving 5 awards for the shittiest games of 2013.

 

[DeadCoyote]

Dear Jim. How could you ever made us belive that game you will be talking ablout is not one that is in the title of that video and on the preview of it?

 

[Strazdas]

I can't play FP games. I'm *physically unable to* play games with a FP perspective, yet it seems more and more games are being released from this perspective only, games I might otherwise have bought. Could you address developers' refusal to recognize that there are people who cannot play their games for this reason? With all the discussion of trying to be inclusive for all types of gamers, it's sad that developers don't realize they're making games some gamers cannot play.

As motion sickness tends to present and increase with age (it did for me,) it seems shortsighted for developers to exclude those portions of the population who are most probably in a position to have disposable income to buy video games.

You have to realize here that you are a very extreme minority of people. So small it is not worth taking you int equasion when deciding the perspective. Even if 100% of people with this disorder were to buy the game and 100% of its price would go to developers, its doubtful if that would justify the costs of adding different perspectives thank first person in games that dont have them.
They know there are such people, they just dont care. Its not economicly viable to care. Its like stopping all third person games because i get totally lost in perspective there. thats not going to happen.
and let mecorrect you there, motion sickness decreases with age. There is a reason almost all motion sickness you "grow out of" by the time you become an adult. That may not be your case, but that is for majority of such disorders.

 

[Smeatza]

If it were me I would have discounted The Stanley Parable HD seen as it's a remake of a game from another year.
I supposed that's more to do with my pedantry than anything else though.

 

[JudgeGame]

The game that was missing from this list for me was "Papers, Please"

im actually interested to hear jims views and opinions on papers please myself

I think he did a Let's Play of it.

 

[Mojoscosco]

Good choice. And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for not picking Gone Home.