The Stanley Parable

 PC
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2315 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,756 out of 2315
  2. Mixed: 323 out of 2315
  3. Negative: 236 out of 2315

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  1. Estranged
    Oct 22, 2013
    0
    This is an interactive branching "story" written by an infantile person. It's a parody that breaks the fourth wall and basically says "You want to do this or that? But you can't, you are in a game! Take this random nonsense instead!" Apparently the critics think this is very deep and smart for some reason. It staggers the mind how this atrocity can have such a high score. Maybe theThis is an interactive branching "story" written by an infantile person. It's a parody that breaks the fourth wall and basically says "You want to do this or that? But you can't, you are in a game! Take this random nonsense instead!" Apparently the critics think this is very deep and smart for some reason. It staggers the mind how this atrocity can have such a high score. Maybe the professional reviewers were afraid to give it a low score, because they didn't want to have fingers pointed at them and people saying "Ha, ha, they didn't get it". Or maybe the professional reviewers have no experience with good books, because breaking the 4th wall is nothing new, and random infantile events and parody in a story is something kids aged 8 are able to do. I regret the time wasted on this, I felt the need to take a bath after touching this pile of dirt.… Expand
  2. BoneAnza
    Oct 24, 2013
    0
    My 14 y/o son downloaded this game for me and asked me to play it because he loved it. I played the demo for about 30 minutes and I couldn't stand it. Sorry...not my style for a game. I must be an old fart.
  3. Cam1010
    Oct 30, 2013
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I gave this game a zero to help bring the score down (really deserves a 7 imho) Listen carefully fellow gamers when all these other reviewers tell you its 2-3 hours long at best. What breaks the game for me is there is nothing in the game to actually figure out. Each ending is discovered by exploration only, never by interacting with the world and solving any kind of puzzle or dilemma. REALLY was enjoying the game until the point I was "stuck" couldn't figure out what to do next to advance the story. Went online for a hint only to discover Id already discovered about 90% of the game and there wasn't anything more to the game. Bottom line is I too fell ripped off for listening to all the high reviews that just said AWESOME trust me buy it! Its a $2-3 experience. I bought Bioshock Infinite on Steam recently for $13..bought this for $15. Lesson learned about wise allocation of limiting gaming funds.… Expand
  4. chedRvendetR
    Oct 30, 2013
    0
    This game is too damn short. If it weren't just 10 minutes of gameplay I would have given this a good review, but no. This game has some definite good moments but they don't raise the bar.
  5. Sabatasso
    Dec 28, 2013
    0
    This is not a game, and shouldn't be rated as one. This is a graphic novel with poor graphics and an OK story. Nothing to go all excited about at all in my opinion. I'm not joining the bandwagon because I'm not a sheep. I'm not warning others away from this product though, you might quite possibly like it. But it's very short.
  6. pirate108
    Nov 7, 2013
    0
    0 because this is not a game. Sorry, but why would anyone buy this? I refuse to accept this as the future of gaming, because games should be games. Skyrim is a game, Democracy 3 is a game, Minesweeper is a game, this is not. It would be ok if it's 1 or 2$ but 15? Seriously? For this? It's fun for 10 minutes, after that it's annoying as hell.
  7. Mike-Messiah
    Mar 18, 2014
    0
    This game is so friggin overrated. Indie **** hyped by wannabe hipster gamers who find it cool to like "off-beaten" games. This game tries to use humor and witty narrative to appear cool, mocking modern gaming practices,storytelling,mechanics,scripting etc etc. Guess what, we DONT NEED A REMINDER. We have been gaming for decades,and we don't NEED a satire to remind what we are experiencingThis game is so friggin overrated. Indie **** hyped by wannabe hipster gamers who find it cool to like "off-beaten" games. This game tries to use humor and witty narrative to appear cool, mocking modern gaming practices,storytelling,mechanics,scripting etc etc. Guess what, we DONT NEED A REMINDER. We have been gaming for decades,and we don't NEED a satire to remind what we are experiencing all these years.
    Its a friggin walking simulator. And thats it.
    There are 18 possible endings, but they are pretty similar apart from 4-5 of them. Wont spoil it for you guys. My first 2-3 runs were entertaining, the narrator did a great job with the voice overs. But after 1 hour of playing.... the game became a chore. Its extremely repetitive, hearing the same long ass dialogus over and over JUST TO DISCOVER the alternate endings.
    Apart from like 5 endings, the remaining 13 endings are bland and repetitive. in fact they shouldn't even be counted as proper endings.
    i'm giving it a ZERO not to offset the biased overall score, bt because this game ACTUALLY deserves a ZERO for charging me $15 for 0.99cent gameplay    … Expand
  8. jeremiahVI
    Dec 3, 2013
    0
    I bought this game on steam and had the day off to play it... but I feel a bit ripped off as this game cost me 10 Euro and after an hour I had found all the endings... pity
  9. Dygar
    Dec 12, 2013
    0
    Not worth paying for. This is a fun diversion for an hour. Good voice acting. That's it. I feel duped for having paid for it based on the positive reviews and nondescript game description. If I could complain and return it I would.

    You could watch a video on youtube covering the complete game play in about 30 minutes and save yourself the cash for an actual game. How this got    Not worth paying for. This is a fun diversion for an hour. Good voice acting. That's it. I feel duped for having paid for it based on the positive reviews and nondescript game description. If I could complain and return it I would.

    You could watch a video on youtube covering the complete game play in about 30 minutes and save yourself the cash for an actual game.

    How this got rated so well I'll never know. Maybe I'm just still bitter about having spent money on it.    … Expand
  10. Basinas1313
    Dec 19, 2013
    0
    I believe that whoever rated the game so highly is because either he's afraid of being called "dump" and criticized for not understanding a so-called "smart" game (similarly to the trailer of the game where the narrator faces a supposable critic called raphael with irony and derision) or his lack of intelligence makes him consider this game as ****

    You expect it to be all complexed    I believe that whoever rated the game so highly is because either he's afraid of being called "dump" and criticized for not understanding a so-called "smart" game (similarly to the trailer of the game where the narrator faces a supposable critic called raphael with irony and derision) or his lack of intelligence makes him consider this game as ****

    You expect it to be all complexed and clever but in fact is boring and makes you wonder why are you still playing. It's so unintereresting and a total waste of time.    … Expand
  11. mattco
    Dec 26, 2013
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I had to create an account on Metacritic just to review this game. After all the high scores, it sounded promising even though I couldn't really tell what the game was about. Well, don't waste your time. The entire game is wandering around like one of those old "create your own story" books where you kept flipping to different pages depending on your choices. The reload wait times and the slow, boring narrator made this game the biggest waste of money I've ever spent on a "game."… Expand
  12. harviolo
    Dec 31, 2013
    0
    Even though I bought this in the sale I have to admit it's not even worth the sale price. This should be about £1.99 at most. Buying this was my second biggest mistake of 2013 that stinking pile of crap 'Takedown: Red Sabre', being the first.

    At best this 'game', if you can call it that, is patronising and boring. There is no original, high brow, intellectual message within and I am    Even though I bought this in the sale I have to admit it's not even worth the sale price. This should be about £1.99 at most. Buying this was my second biggest mistake of 2013 that stinking pile of crap 'Takedown: Red Sabre', being the first.

    At best this 'game', if you can call it that, is patronising and boring. There is no original, high brow, intellectual message within and I am baffled as to how it scored so highly. Steam really needs to implement some form of refund system.    … Expand
  13. NewtSoup
    Jan 5, 2014
    0
    How this pile of rubbish rates an 8 is beyond me. Apparently the game is about freedom and choice. I found myself frequently wandering an utterly linear path, unable it interact with anything in particular listening to the (well spoken) narrator droning on about how I was wandering down a path. The truth is, there are very few choices to make in this "software" (I refuse to call it aHow this pile of rubbish rates an 8 is beyond me. Apparently the game is about freedom and choice. I found myself frequently wandering an utterly linear path, unable it interact with anything in particular listening to the (well spoken) narrator droning on about how I was wandering down a path. The truth is, there are very few choices to make in this "software" (I refuse to call it a game). Lacklustre graphics (even for the source engine) reduce this to a full on 0 for me. A total waste of money and time..… Expand
  14. Raynnon
    Jan 6, 2014
    0
    This is not a game. This is a just a voice which says what you have to do. Finally you do not have a lot of possibilities in this "game". It is just like somebody who tell you a story...
  15. BenJones
    Feb 8, 2014
    0
    I played this game for about two and a half hours, to see how deep the rabbit hole goes and, ok the first hour is funny, but there's really no depth here.

    Don't be fooled, this emperor hasn't a stitch on!
  16. SammiXero
    Mar 4, 2014
    0
    considering how good the reviews are for this game, i got easily bored and felt cheated even though i got it on a steam sale. yes it was fun hearing the 'witty' things the narrator said. at first. then i did all the endings and figured out that it is boring and generic and mundane.
  17. Muskie
    Mar 22, 2014
    0
    I just created an account because I think this game....game?...not sure it is the right definition ...it is more an April fool than a game. Forget all the positives reviews here. Young people think they discovered the true by trying to play this but in fact it is just what most of us already know and don't want to ear again and think again. Get the cash, do your best and pay your bill. WeI just created an account because I think this game....game?...not sure it is the right definition ...it is more an April fool than a game. Forget all the positives reviews here. Young people think they discovered the true by trying to play this but in fact it is just what most of us already know and don't want to ear again and think again. Get the cash, do your best and pay your bill. We bought games to relax and forget about the job not to remain us how our life can suck or how to see the life in a way that is total negativity. It is a good way to become tired of everything and start to forget how life can be great Just compare us to the rest of the planet. People are so whimsical and selfish ..please don't feed the moron's brain with that kind of stuff. LoL
    In short ... Download the demo.. play it.. If you can't catch the joke you not gonna like the game and even if you catch it and find it funny you're not gonna have a game if you buy the full release just the repetition of what you have found in the demo. Don't worth a penny to me since you gonna waste your precious time and money at thinking how your life can suck without doing anything constructive. It is a game killer. If you want to stop playing games ..good for you    … Expand
  18. Metalmaster91
    Jul 2, 2015
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I understood the meaning of the game and almost the 80% of the secrets and clues on the museum. I am a gamer, and I like to play videogames, not a paranoid reasoning about videogames or the development of them. This game it’s simply boring, not intractable (you can transmit the same idea, letting the player interact more with the context), or even making a book to transmit your thinking. It’s made for people that needs to get unique experience to get realized. And what means the museum? It’s like: “Oh, see!! What a huge d*** I got!! I have made this for this reason, u see?” It’s really not a good game…… Expand
  19. Wuji
    Dec 29, 2014
    0
    I can see that this game is a clever piece of art however, it is not a game at all. It is more of a statement of someone who thinks they are more clever and witty than everyone else. I tried hard to like this but, instead I just felt really bad for anyone who actually paid money to play it for an hour.
  20. toxicmoron
    Jan 14, 2015
    0
    This is my first review on metacritic and will probably be my one and only one, but I really felt I had to share this. I have a deep hunch that this game is all about how FAKE RATINGS can make a person like myself buy a totally crap game. I cannot believe how ridiculous this "game" is: totally linear, no empathic connection whatsoever to the character or the environment, and no directionThis is my first review on metacritic and will probably be my one and only one, but I really felt I had to share this. I have a deep hunch that this game is all about how FAKE RATINGS can make a person like myself buy a totally crap game. I cannot believe how ridiculous this "game" is: totally linear, no empathic connection whatsoever to the character or the environment, and no direction at all. This game is a proof of how low the gaming industry can go. I'm "glad" I bought this game for about 3 euros, but knowing what I know now, I would want to be paid a LOT of money to spend even five more minutes on it. A total market scam (check all those 10/10 marks and read the text, they're quite implausible. Stay miles away and don't even spend one cent on this one.… Expand
  21. Nightveil
    May 31, 2016
    0
    The thing about The Stanley Parable is that it is, after all, a parable. It's preaching about a thing in the form of a story designed to illustrate its point.

    And that's fine as far as it goes. The problem lies in the fact that the thing the game preaches about is how bad games are for people and wouldn't it be better if we all went outside. There is a wry humor to the game,    The thing about The Stanley Parable is that it is, after all, a parable. It's preaching about a thing in the form of a story designed to illustrate its point.

    And that's fine as far as it goes. The problem lies in the fact that the thing the game preaches about is how bad games are for people and wouldn't it be better if we all went outside.

    There is a wry humor to the game, certainly and the weird feeling you get as you try to find out how the game works is certainly effective, but it becomes obvious to anyone who's been gaming for decades that the story is all about the idea that gaming on the whole is bad and somehow stifles human creativity.

    And that's all there is.

    Don't waste your money or your time with this. There are better pieces of interactive fiction available.    … Expand
  22. rabbit368
    Oct 31, 2016
    0
    Like an artsy movie the game tries to make a statement about other games and their lack of choice. In the end it succeeds quite well at this, but spending 3 hours wandering around an office to have pointed out to me all the ways games are flawed is not really my idea of fun. I got the joke, such that it was, after the first 30 mins.
  23. fcon
    Apr 30, 2017
    0
    An evil game that uses subliminal messages in the demo to convince you to buy the game. AVOID THE GAME. THIS ALONE SHOULD CONVINCE YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM THESE MANIPULATIVE PEOPLE'S HORRID GAME.
  24. super_absorber
    Jan 7, 2021
    0
    One of the worst games I have played.....0 gameplay at all and very boring story..
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Awards & Rankings

8
#8 Best PC Game of 2013
17
#17 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
49
#49 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
88

Generally favorable reviews - based on 47 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 46 out of 47
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 47
  3. Negative: 0 out of 47
  1. Pelit (Finland)
    Mar 11, 2014
    84
    The Stanley Parable is many things. It's an interactive comedy, an existential riddle and an experiment in storytelling. Most importantly, it's pretty good. [Nov 2013]
  2. GameOver.gr
    Jan 23, 2014
    100
    It's one of those games that tries and succeeds in making a bold statement. Be prepared for something really special.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Dec 25, 2013
    90
    Step away from this review and play it now. Or don't. Whatever you do is already ordained. OR IS IT?! [Jan 2014, p.83]
See all critic reviews »