The Stanley Parable - Review

I've been playing The Stanley Parable over my birthday. I have played it over, and over, and over again... you may ask, why would I play the same game over and over? Well in The Stanley Parable, it's kind of the point.

You play as a everyday worker called Stanley. Stanley works in an office building at a computer terminal in room 427. He is given commands on his monitor. These commands tell him which buttons to press and for how long. One day he finds all his coworkers gone. Where did they go? Maybe Stanley missed a memo. From here, Stanley's fate is in your hands. Will you follow The Narrators instructions or will you destroy the game he spent so long making? Maybe you will help him test out a new game he is making.

When I first started playing The Stanley Parable, I thought it would be a puzzle game. From the trailer I knew it would restart again and again with slight changes so I assumed I would be finding the things that made those small changes in order to reach a final ending. I spent time and time again doing slightly different things, taking notes of numbers to access codes and paying close attention to the small things.

It took me some time but I soon realised this was not a puzzle game. This was an adventure game. Maybe an art game. I'm still unsure. The Stanley Parable has multiple endings. In fact the point of the game is to find all the endings. There is no right or wrong way to go. Follow the narrator's... well narrations... or don't. Its really up to you.

The Stanley Parable is full of comedy. The humor reminded me of Portal's humor. The narrator basically tells the story but as time goes on he can get a little annoyed or frustrated at you not doing as he says. I had a real laugh when I went into the broom closet in two games and on the second time he said "Oh not this again.". The 3rd time around the broom closet was boarded up to prevent me from going in there.

I do like this game a lot, however, I like games with a little more... I don't know... direction I guess. I wanted to actually have a true ending I was aiming for. I loved the idea of starting again and again with slight changes. I suppose I expected The Stanley Parable to be a puzzle game so I went into it, trying to "complete" the game. But there is no true ending. Its just lots of different endings.

So how do I rate this game.

Graphics: 6 / 10: I don't really know what to write about them. they were okay.

Music: N/A - There wasn't really any music. Except in the... other game part (without giving too much away)

Story: 8/10 - This was an interesting story because is was every changing. Is the narrator bad or good? The comedy in the story is what really made it.

Gameplay: 8/10 -The gameplay was fun. It is fun trying to find different ways to change the story.

Overall: 7.3 / 10

An interesting and funny game. Gets you addicted for a few hours but you don't know why?

Steam Sales

Hey guys SighFye here

I wanted to share with you all my Steam Sale buys. Now keep in mind, I missed a lot of the really good ones because Bel and I are moving interstate and need what money we have. We were looking for the under $3 kinda deals.

So here is my list. Some were gifted to Bel and some were mines so I'll keep them categorized. Mine first...

My new games

As you all may know I am a fan of the Oddworld series and recently bought New & Tasty. Well there are two games in the series I have not yet played (I know, I know, as a fan I should have played them by now. But I didn't so leave me alone.)  So the first two games on my list are...

Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee - $1.24 USD

 

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD - $2.49 USD

When I was younger I was a big fan of the Tomb Raider series. I haven't played them all but I love the adventure puzzle style gameplay. It's what got me into the Uncharted series too. So when this game came on sale I just had to get it.

Tomb Raider - $3.99 USD

Now I am a massive fan of Portal. The comedy, the puzzles, its an amazing game. When I saw this next game it reminded me of it. Seems to have some comedy aspects to it.

The Stanlet Parable - $3.74 USD

Now moving on. I have always liked a big scare. So I thought this next game would be a good one.

Slender: The Arrival - $1.49 USD

And my final game is a genre I am obsessed about. The Zombie genre. So my last game is...

How To Survive - $0.74 USD

So that is my total of Steam Sale games. It all came to a total of $13.69 USD or $17.69AUD. Its like getting all these games for free when you buy a good game :D

So now we have Bel's list.

Fez - $1.99 USD

 Kings Bounty: Crossworlds - $2.99 USD

BattleBlock Theater - $3.74 USD

Antichamber - $1.99 USD

For a total of $10.71 USD or $13.84 AUD

For the whole sale Bel had her eyes on Cities Skylines. She is a massive fan of Sim games as you may have read in her post. So I surprised her with it. It kinda fell outside the cheap rule, but I couldn't help myself.

Cities Skylines - $22.49 USD

So our total Steam Summer Sales came to $50.89 USD or $65.77 AUD. The best part of it all. I paid for it all out of either Second Life earnings or Ebay sales :D

So comment below and share you Steam Sale list. Don't forget to 1+.

Save More on Steam Sales

The steam sales are tomorrow people and we are all in to getting some great games at a great price. But I am here to teach you how to make the most of the steam sales and save the most money. Save more on steam sale he says? That's right, the price you are paying may not be the best price you will pay during this sale. It may say 25% off but if you wait you may find that same game for 70% off. You have to be patient.

So lets look how to get the best deals.

1) Is the game a daily deal? When you first log into steam you are presented with a list of games that are on sale. If your game is in there, GRAB it now because these deals only last 24hours and always list the lowest price.

2) The next place you should go is the flash sales. Flash sales are also on the lowest prices. Games that were in Daily Deals often can be found in flash sales the next day. These sales only last 8 hours so you will want to log in a few times a day to find the games you want.

3) After flash sales we have Community Choice. These are the games selected by the community. The winner of the votes gets the largest discount. So vote and buy.

4) The last of course is last day. On the last day all the best sellers of the sale gets posted once again at its lowest price. If you missed a deal, it may be here.

So get out your wallets and prepare yourselves to spend a months rent in one fantastic place and buy a crap load of game you probably will never play Well that my usual story anyway.

Get The Most From Steam

Recently I have found a few things that Steam can do that is really cool and I wanted to share them with you.

1) Game Sharing: I was playing on my account on Bel's computer when I noticed at the bottom of my library: "Bellistik's Games" and a list of her games. I decided to click on one I knew was installed and see what happened. A request was sent to Bel's account asking her permission for me to share her games on her computer. I logged into her account and accepted the request. I was then able to play her games, on my account. Now this was cool enough but what made it better, the game was treated as though it was my game. I didn't have to play her game. So now, I have in my library, ALL of her games and ALL of mine.

2) Game Streaming: Today I saw Bel's games again but this time on my computer. Once again I decided to try and play it but this time, play was replaced with stream, so I clicked stream. Her game then loaded on my PC. And I was able to play it. Now I want to point out that my lappy is not good enough to play some of the games but this time I was able to play. I looked at Bel's computer and steam had given me control with my keyboard and mouse.

3) Download without using bandwidth: As previous mentioned by Lloyd, you can set up steam to download your games from freezone servers only. I won't go into this as Lloyd already wrote a post about it. If interested in this you can read the original post here.

4) Remote Downloading: Damn I forgot to set that game to download and I'm out on the town. Well you can log into your account via the webpage and start a download from there. Then when you get home your game will be ready and waiting for you.

And these are the things I have found which I didn't know myself. Now you can get more out of Steam :D

Tech Tip - Free Steam Downloads Bandwidth

If you're like me, you've often run over your monthly allowance of data because you bought a few too many games through steam that week and been restricted down to dial-up speeds until the month rolls over. (That's if you live in the stone age, like most of us Australians do)

Now most internet providers have certain content that they call the "freezone" or something similar, where anything you download is not counted towards your monthly limit. Some companies, like iiNet, have Steam servers set up that run inside this Freezone network. You can make use of these servers using the steam settings, but ultimately that just sets a preferred server. Steam can still download through a metered server if the unmetered server is busy or doesn't have the content you're after.

I have found a piece of software that allows me to download most things off steam without them touching my monthly allowance of data whatsoever. It's called Steam Limiter and it blocks steam from connecting to any download servers that are not within the Freezone for your ISP. This effectively forces Steam to run only through servers that are not counted towards your monthly allowance of data.

Now there are a few small drawbacks. I have noticed that some content is not available from these freezone servers, so occasionally I have to disable it to install a game, but it happens very infrequently. The software's benefits also depend on your Internet Service Provider having a Freezone Steam server. So if you are with an ISP that doesn't provide one, you're out of luck :/

All in all, it's a very useful piece of software and it has stopped the majority of complaints from my housemates about the data always running out each month, so it has served it's purpose for me. Your mileage will vary, but I highly recommend trying it and seeing if there's a noticeable decrease in your monthly data usage :3

A Bundle Of Joy

Hey guys, SighFye here.

Have any of you ever wanted more games but didn't want to spend heaps? A few years back, I found game bundles. Basically, they are a bundle of games and you pay what you want for them. The minimum payment is the average of all the payments before you. The money is raised for charity and it also helps indie game developers get their games out.

Yesterday I bought a bundle called Reboot Bundle 8.0 for $1.99 USD. It consisted of 10 indie games most of which will run on my shitty shitbox. The games ranged from racing, to puzzle, to Mario style fan made games. I have only managed to play 2 of them and with those two alone it was well worth the purchase.

 

 The games (with their normal steam price) included were...

8bit Boy - $3.99

Fortix 2 - $1.99

 Residue: Final Cut - $5.99

 Ignite - $9.99

  Jet Car Stunts - $6.99

 Rush For Glory - $14.99 (SCORE)

 SOL: Exodus - $7.99

 Space Farmers - $9.99

 Vector - $6.99

Xotic - $9.99

That's $78.90 value for $1.99. There was once a bundle I bought which had Battlefield 3, Mirrors Edge, Left For Dead 2, FEAR 1, 2 and 3, Dead Space 1 & 3 & Burnout Paradise. I paid less than $10 for all those games :D. The bundles only last for a short time so you have to keep your eye on them.

Here's three of the bundle sites I use.

Bundle Stars

Humble Bundle <-- This is where I got the really good games.

Indie Gala

Go get some cheap games :D

SighFye

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