The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

British

In trying to decide if I should purchase Ultra Deluxe, I played the original game's demo, knowing nothing about The Stanley Parable except that it has liminal spaces and a narrator. By the end of the demo, I realized I still knew very little about what the actual game would be like, except that it had not "a narrator" but The Narrator. That was incentive enough for me to purchase Ultra Deluxe. I definitely recommend NOT researching the game beforehand, as I enjoyed trying different things and being surprised rather than knowing what would happen. I don't have much to add that hasn't been covered in other reviews, except that I loved the game so much that I ended up buying the original version and playing the Half-Life 2 mod as well. In comparing the two commercial versions, I do feel that Ultra Deluxe is worth buying over the original despite the higher price, for someone like me who is completely new to the game and trying to decide which version to purchase. I'm not sure if the amount of new content objectively justifies the price, but Ultra Deluxe was worth it to me from the standpoint of character development (as strange as that may sound in relation to a game like TSP). The additional content and endings made me care much more about the Narrator than I would have playing only the original game, and the new content almost literally adds another dimension to the character of [spoiler]Employee 432. What exactly happened to him remains a mystery, but the new Easter eggs and certain other content made me care about him in a way I never would have otherwise.[/spoiler] My only real criticism of Ultra Deluxe is that I felt like the Reassurance Bucket gag was overdone, particularly the running joke that every character is absolutely enamored with the bucket. I was very tired of that bucket by the time I played through all its endings. But maybe that's just me, and I just don't pick up the bucket when I replay the game. Problem solved.