Velvet Assassin Review

When one talks about stealth, the games that generally come to mind are Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. These games are the pinnacle of what stealth genre in games are capable of. Velvet Assassin is a game developed by a new team of developers called Replay Studios. In the game you will take up the role of Violette Summer, a British woman who acts as a spy for MI6 in London. So the game starts off with you thrown directly in to the German territority. Your job is to secretly assasinate the highest authorities present in the Nazi Faction. Most of the plot is set as a flashback where Violette just goes back in to her memory to recount what had happened before while she’s in coma. The plot is pretty good and helps the player see the horrendous events that took place during World War I. I must say that the game pretty much manages to represent the atrocities done during that brutal phase of the war.

When one talks about stealth, the games that generally come to mind are Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. These games are the pinnacle of what stealth genre in games are capable of. Velvet Assassin is a game developed by a new team of developers called Replay Studios. In the game you will take up the role of Violette Summer, a British woman who acts as aspy for MI6 in London. So the game starts off with you thrown directly in to the German territority. Your job is to secretly assasinate the highest authorities present in the Nazi Faction. Most of the plot is set as a flashback where Violette just goes back in to her memory to recount what had happened before while she’s in coma. The plot is pretty good and helps the player see the horrendous events that took place during World War I. I must say that the game pretty much manages to represent the atrocitites done during that brutal phase of the war.

Now the most important part, the gameplay. Since the game is stealth game, the player is restricted to many things. You will be basically going through various locations in Germany and they all have an effect on how you approach each situation. But the basic remains the same as in every stealth game: “remain in the shadows”. So the game has an indicator which changes color depending you are under a light source or well hidden. There will be Nazi enemies that you have to face off, so just like any other stealth game, the player has the vision to see everything in the dark and your enemies for no reason become blind. This is much more evident in this game and this really takes out the reality factor from the game. So to take out the enemy is pretty simple, you have to just approach the enemy from behind at the right time and by pressing a button your character will take care of the rest. Having said that this doesn’t get old at all during the game. Also just like the popular Splinter Cell and Hitman games you will be able to look throgh key holes to decide whether an enemy is present behind closed doors. The stealth mechanic all in all is pretty much solid and tight and it just helps to raise the tension. The combat in Velvet Assassin is very weak and frustrating. You will have access to various types of guns in the game including your knife, machine guns, flare thrower and your normal pistol. There are certain sections in the game where you need to use your sniper rifle. These parts had so much potential but the developers i guess messed it up. The aim system is a hit and miss and has not been properly implemented. There are actually two more stealth modes in the game. The first one of these is the Morphine Mode which activates when the player injects herself with Morphine, found during the game. This will stop the time and Violette will be able to escape or kill any guards nearby. Another mode is the one which the player is allowed to change her uniform to a SS one. This fools the nearby Nazi guards, but you cover is blown if you get too close to them. There are also character upgrades availiable which depends on how “collectibles” you are able to find out

during the course of the game. Via the pause screen you can upgrade your “Morphine Mode”, “Strength” and “Stealth”. Although these are just small additions but atleast they help the character develop along with the plot. The game has some really frustrating scenes. There were moments where i had to play a particular session for over 20 times to clear it. The AI of the enemies really looks to be bland and at sometimes its spot on.

The visual are perhaps the most impressive stuff about Velvet Assassin. The dark setting really interprets the horrendous atrocities done by the Nazis. The game will take you from lush jungles to underground sewers. All the environments have been beautifully rendered to show dark times during World War I. The character models are pretty disappointing. You will find the same type of soldiers again and again. Even the protagonist’s animations are not very fluid. Story is told via a number of cutscenes which are just OK. Theres actually nothing to be written about sound since Velvet Assassin being a stealth game its pretty quiet. However at later levels the voices of people being burnt alive really adds a sense of drama to the game.

Velvet Assassin is a game that is not without issues. The stealth mechanics have been executed very well but it is often nullified by some really awkward combat and frustrating sequences. On first play Velvet Assassin will take you about 10 hours to beat which actually makes this game a pretty long one. Velvet Assassin is at best a rental, but gamers who want an alternate look at World War games rather than first person shooters might just wanna pick this game up.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.