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Velvet Assassin review — WW2 stealth action

WW2 games are a plenty of, ever since Medal of Honor took the FPS world by storm (and Call of Duty following in its footsteps), there has been no shortage of games set in World War 2. However, there are only few stealth games in that setting, and one of them is Velvet Assassin.

You play as Violet Summer, a british spy/assassin sent behind enemy lines for Queen and country. But not so fast. You start by waking up at a hospital after a mission went wrong. You’re woozy from the morphine and have nightmares of the past missions, which serve to tell some of the backstory.

The gameplay is your usual stealth action; you sneak around, way behind enemy lines and complete missions, which vary from blowing up important buildings (like fuel depots) to straight out assassinating Nazi leaders. The gameplay is very intuitive and the sneaking works great. To some extent. What Velvet Assassin does great — the sneaking — is countered by what it does bad; the enemy AI. You can sneak behind enemies, but those enemies are rather dumb, actually, they’re plain stupid. They walk through pre-determined waypoints, and will often ignore when they see you or when you do obvious stuff, like cut the lights. This takes away a lot of the rush from sneaking, because you know that you’re sneaking behind morons. Also, the stealth action is somewhat linear; there’s usually only one way of getting to your objective. This means that there is very little replay value in the game, as there is no multiplayer either.

The combat is mostly comprised of you sneaking up and surprising the bad guys by slitting their throats etc. However, there are other ways of killing your foes, like setting electricity through a water pit once a guard steps on it, or pull a valve that releases toxic gas, thereby killing your foes. In addition to this, there is the usual way: shooting them. However, the shooting mechanics are poorly implemented, and it’s best avoided. But at a few places in the game, you are required to shoot several enemies, which can become quite frustrating. Also, the amount of ammunition is quite limited, so you’re best off fighting your enemies in another fashion.

Another thing that the game does well, is the atmosphere it creates. It’s by no means a “light” game. It’s very dark, both technically and artistically, as you frequently come across atrocities of war committed by the Nazis, like mass graves of executed prisoners and resistance fighters. There’s a great sense of realism to the game, from the grim visuals, to the soundtrack, which create great sense of realism and danger.

Technically, the game looks great, especially the dark parts and shadows. The lighting is done very well and serves as a way of immersing the player into the game (and helps greatly with the sneaking). The sounds and voice acting are on par with what’s expected — not perfect, but not bad either. The soundtrack is especially moody and creates a feel of suspense. However, the game does stutter occasionally with low FPS, and there are a few bugs which should’ve been ironed out.

In all, Velvet Assassin can be recommended for the fans of WW2 games and especially stealth action games. However, there isn’t much of a challenge because of the horrible AI and lack of polish,. Furthermore, there is little replay value and no multiplayer feature.

The Good:
Great atmosphere
Harsh realism
Decent stealth action

The Bad:
Lacks polish
Very linear
No multiplayer
Occasional bugs

Overall score: 6/10

Velvet Assassin Game Review–Please Shoot This In The Back Of The Head

So Velvet Assassin finally managed to show itself, despite a long string of delays and various excuses as to why nobody could manage to lay hands on it.  And now that it’s finally out, is it any good?  Is it worth your rental or purchase dollar?

My answer?  Not a chance.  If it were possible to put a game on trial for war crimes, I would happily sit on the prosecution on this one.

You’ll play as Violette Summer, a British secret agent in the field in the declining days of World War II.  Violette is a lovely, charming lass with plenty of genteel English charm, and she’s also a trained instrument of death and mayhem.  She got that way after her husband, an RAF pilot, died in combat.  Feeling she needed to do something to atone for her loss–and get a note of vengeance in the bargain–she went in for MI6 training and thus came out a spy.  She’ll be neck deep in Germany with no support from the English government whatever, and she’ll be doing as much damage as possible to help bring about the end of the Nazi regime.

But she’s not REALLY in Germany right now–she’s actually in hospital right now, dying from massive injuries sustained in her spying efforts.  And you’re reliving her missions through a series of flashbacks.

This all sounds fairly innovative, of course, reliving your missions backward through an unusual perspective, but the problem is–the BIG problem, why I’d cheerfully put this game up in front of a firing squad, is that the gameplay is incredibly tiresome.

On the one hand, they’ve put some innovative concepts in here, such as a “morphine mode” which slows down your memories and allows you to engage in killing on a rampant scale, temporarily.  And of course, as numerous other gamers have already suggested, playing an attractive female character in third person vantage has some advantages of its own.  Admittedly, as advantages go, these are pretty minor at best, and frankly, of limited appeal.

The disadvantages are much, MUCH more tragic—mainly, this is a game that requires a lot of sneaking around, especially in the early stages, and I have never been one to enjoy the sneaking around.  I’m going toe to toe with NAZIS.  I expect to be able to bust some serious caps up in some fascists.  One particularly annoying segment in the beginning required me to jam a knife in a Nazi while his partner wandered off.  If after doing the killing on the first one, you don’t get the body sufficiently hidden in sufficiently rapid fashion, you’ll be attacked by the second.  You’ve only got the assassin’s knife you’ve been using all along, and that’s not going to do a whole lot of good against the German with the grease gun.

And that in a nutshell is the biggest problem with Velvet Assassin—entirely too much sneaking around.  If you recognize games like Assassin’s Creed (that one even HAS the word assassin in it), or Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell or No One Lives Forever, well, that’s not a surprise.  I kind of caught that one myself.    Oh, sure, some people can’t get enough of stealth action games like this, and for some, the adventure and romance of being a spy in World War II is just entirely too much to resist.  Depending on your very specific tastes, you’ll either love this game or wish it’d never been made.

Velvet Assassin Gone Gold

Replay Studios today sent out word that its stealth-action take on the WWII exploits of British agent Violette Szabo has gone gold. Dubbed Velvet Assassin, the game lets players take control of the agent as she takes out Nazi soldiers during the war.

The game is due out on PC and Xbox 360 on April 30. However, several retailers are currently listing the game as shipping out a few days earlier – April 28.