It’s hard to believe that the original The Stanley Parable, one of the weirdest games in memory, is nine years old. It’s just gotten an expanded version with even more disturbingly hilarious narrative metatextuality. Or, if you wish, hilariously disturbing metatextuality narrative. Metatextually narrative disturbing hilarity?
Now there’s an Ultra Deluxe version, which is described as a “re-imagining.” It’s a third-off on Steam for the moment, putting its price close to that of the original, which is still listed on Steam, waiting to trick people into buying it who don’t know there’s an expanded version on the same store. This version also has ports to Switch, the two most recent PlayStations, and the current/past three Xboxes. I’d hate to be in charge of that build chain.
So once again prepare to pilot Stanley through an FPS without any combat or weapons, experiencing* a story, and a narrator, who reacts to your actions in entertaining ways. The original game had so many riffs on its subject that it might be worth picking up the new version just to see what further milk they can extract from its thematic teat.
(* “And the prize for the Most Generic Verb goes to….”)
