4/5 ★ – jake84's review of The Stanley Parable.

A little over two years ago, a young guy called Davey Wreden developed a groundbreaking game built on Valve's innovative Source-engine. He called it The Stanley Parable - a kind of video game experiment in which it largely meant to, or at least it encourages the player to defy the narrator, thus breaking a common narrative. Subsequently Wreden teamed up with graphic designer William Pugh to form the company Galactic Cafe, and together they have now re-released the game in a more fine-tuned, high-definition version released for PC and Mac. In an office building in a cubicle sits Employee #427, Stanley, who mechanically presses the buttons, the computer requires him to press. He never questions why. That is until one day where he discovers, to his great surprise, that he is all alone in the building. Stanley sets out to investigate why all his colleagues are gone. Has there been a crime? Should he do as the Narrator tells him? And who does this voice even belong do? The Stanley Parable is created as an experiment and is a successful satire on the big, blockbuster games standardized narrative. Here, the player is encouraged to employ creative thinking and questioning a linear action. For instance, fairly early on in the game, you come across two doors where the narrator in the past tense says that Stanley chose the one on the left, but you can still choose not to do so, of course. And from there, the story can branch off in a ton of directions, and The Stanley Parable's many endings is something you have to experiment yourself to discover, as you will not get a clear answer and a happy ending in just one of them. Besides Stanley Parables downright inventive structure - or perhaps lack of it - it's the unknown actor, Kevan Brighting, as the Narrator that's the star of the show, his voice being just sufficiently mechanical and sarcastic that even the smallest things become funny, where it would normally mean the opposite. It is not so much the mystery of one's missing colleagues that's the alluring element in game like this; the interesting thing is the way you can continue to challenge the narrative and play with its structure, though the more you play, the clearer it becomes that it's the game that's playing you. The point being, that the game is not as solution-oriented as other first-person indie games such as Gone Home are, but more abstract and artistic like Dear Esther. Breaking the fourth wall may not be innovative in popular culture in general, but it seems fresh and innovative in the gaming world. However, it may be a little too meta-fictional and satirical for some, but whether this appeals to you or not is of no matter: It's simply a game everyone will have to try. While not a masterpiece, it is undoubtedly a quite interesting meta-piece, even if it is a little too tongue-in-cheek and self-indulgent.