Velvet Assassin Review, Quick Zee Germans Are Coming

May 20, 2009 -

Should games be fun? It seems like an obvious question but for some titles this mandatory objective isn’t always apparent.

Velvet Assassin is such a game, you play as female spy, Violette Summer during the Second World War where you duty’s often include stabbing Nazi personnel in the backs, changing costumes, stealing secret plans and blowing up enemy facilities all in a third person action stealth wrapper. Missions are told during a flashback pretence as the main protagonist dreams whilst captured in an enemy facility.

All of this sounds rather interesting doesn’t it but what Southpeak’s title fails to achieve is where any of the game play held within is actually any fun. Velvet Assassin is very much an action stealth game with the vast majority of play centred on the latter, often via sneaking through enemy patrol patterns and switching off the lights.

The biggest problem here is that due to the early 1940’s time period all this sneaking seems dull and antiquated. Most gamers aren’t going to prefer this period to Sam Fisher’s and Solid Snake’s technological gadgetry and acrobatic stealth. Instead players will plod along until the right opportunity presents itself so they can stab or shoot enemies in the back.

Visually Velvet Assassin is very impressive, due to the main protagonists comatose state levels often appear skewed or slightly dream like. As a result enemies look even more evil than you average National Socialist, verging on zombie like at times. Some of the game environments capitalise on the exaggerated palette perfectly with vivid colours which can really take players a back when they emerge from the dark and danker tunnels or bunkers where the action often happens. The subtle gradients between all the different shades of black are also worthy of a mention as they look beautiful when in full effect.

Combat is disappointing and clunky with no hand to hand combat just a simply knife or shoot and if players are really fancy they can knife or shoot the enemies in the back. The kill animations while impressive fail to disguise how much repetition is involved in this game, which wouldn’t be a problem if dispatching foes was fun but sadly its not. The first time you see Violette Summer gouge the enemies privates from the crotch upward is fun the first time but it becomes verges towards comedic revulsion when you watch it the twentieth time. All this is completely at odds with an experience which is very tense, lonely and scary. Despite the deadly nature of the main character you fragile and if you are caught half way to a target, the unfortunate Miss Summer will be killed in next to no time.

Which again is a tool of frustration because the game relies on a checkpoint save which is almost masochistically tight in its allocation. This game was played on a PC, sure one can understand why such a system would be needed on a console due to hard drive constraints but some of us gamers live in PC land, a quick save key would make a world of difference here. It seems like just a way to artificially lengthen the title because there is often no way to tell how many guards are in the area and where the sneak routes are unless you attempt them through trial and error. This mechanic was all well and good in 2002 but memorizing one area to only be killed mid way through another, only to be thrown back to the original area isn’t the way games work in 2009. Its frustrating, it breaks flow and loses the game all the tense atmosphere which it works very hard to establish.

Everything interactive outside of shooting and moving is achieved by a dynamic action prompt in the middle of the screen which immediately takes you out of the game and steals ownership of whatever cool things are happening in game, from the player. The only time players feel exclusively in control is when you are killing the guards by aiming the gun and shooting them, everything else just feels contrived. Ownership of your characters actions is a key component of any stealth game, it should feel like the player has killed the guard with his or her own skill,. Instead players will feel like they were in the right place at the right time, so that the appropriate kill animation can be activated.

All story aspects including briefing video’s, dialogue, and characterisations are all achieved with a reasonable amount of finesse and help to propel the main campaign forward. For most gamers the five missions will take no longer than ten hours which provides enough variation in mission structure and objectives. Collectables encourage replay value but they exist in the world just as a their name sake suggests something to pick up, they don’t place you in world or feel anything but tacked on.

There is also an XP mechanic working on the background where if you pick up these items, or achieve secret objectives such as hiding gold from Nazi’s. Players get no extra XP from actually performing their duties or dispatching guards which seems odd when these are the actions which aid your progression in the game. An average play through will last around ten hours with the last of the five missions being particularly frustrating. Apart from the collectibles there is very little to come back to with this title and by the end of the game many will be sick of its mechanics to want to try again.

In a field which is usually filled with such detestable clichés of war glorification Velvet Assassin achieves originality through a dark and tense atmosphere. To be a participant in this world is scary, dangerous and foreboding in tone and nature. It will make certain gamers think about the sacrifice which was made by some agents during the war and in that flavour it is successful.

There are some mechanics which are at odds with this however such as the morphine induced bullet time where players are momentarily vulnerable while they sneak their intended victim and dispatch. There will be some players which get a significant kick out of this but for the vast majority of players, this title will seem like a product of another era in gaming.

The bottom line is that Velvet Assassin is too dull and one dimensional to be recommended to anyone other than those which are a fan of pretty visuals and ‘classic’ stealth archetypes. But for everyone else there are many other titles which do so much more with the genre and what’s infinitely more important, they are fun.

Presentation: 7.0
Good presentation but lacking definition

Visuals: 8.0
Beautiful shadows, and some vivid colours bring a vitality to the visuals other titles would do well to match.

Gameplay: 6.0
Poor but with flashes of brilliance, you will just be too frustrated to appreciate them

Sound: 5.0
Atmospheric but lacks proper flavour.

Lasting Appeal: 3.0
Perhaps collecting things and going for the perfect play through, but as the game isn’t enjoyable why bother?

Overall Score (Not an average)

4/10 – Below average (Poor, but still with the odd moment)

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