Velvet Assassin Review [Xbox 360, PC]

Posted May 10, 2009 by Joey.

Reviewed on the Xbox 360

With few good releases out lately, you may notice this seemingly out of place game in the shops. Velvet Assassin is yet another stealth action game and while it features nothing new in the genre of stealth games, it does offer a new perspective on the over-baked World War Two games genre.

Velvet Assassin is loosely based on a real historical heroine named Violette Szabo, whose efforts to sabotage and reorganize the French Resistance earned her many awards and memorials. The game does not give you much of an introduction to the character of Violette Summer, but instead starts you off in an eerily similar feel to Hitman: Blood Money, as events are being retold as the main character lies in a deathly state. Only until you reach the end of the game do things pick back up in real time, but of course you know what is going happen before even getting to that point.

Violette’s story stays close to the things that Violette Szabo did, such as parachute behind enemy lines and work to mark areas for bombing for incoming air raids. Violette works to assassinate not only German officers, but also has to reach Resistance prisoners before they give up their information. The story is retold by Violette throughout the game with her narrating things like “That fence was electrified, my hair would stand on end if I touched that!” or “This drunk soldier looked like he needed a second mouth” verbatim. Well not necessarily verbatim, but you get the idea. A lot of flashbacks will cut in to set up what you know is going to happen at the end of the game. The story is straight to the point, and this makes for a short game, which is fortunate as the game play begins to get a little repetitive.

If you are a fan of stealth games, then you are not going to be blown away by this game. You may instead be very disappointed, since Velvet Assassin mixes in a little bit of everything from Hitman to Metal Gear. A lot of people are making the comparison that this game tries to be like Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, but in no way does this game even come close to resembling Splinter Cell.

If anything, Velvet Assassin reminded me more of Hitman 2 than any other game. If you are spotted you do not have much of any chance of surviving as Violette does not believe in automatic weapons. You sneak around with a knife, a silenced pistol with one clip, and if you are lucky you will be able to collect other weapons like a shotgun, flare pistol, and G43 rifle. You do not have any gadgets to play around with other than a gas mask, flashlight and morphine. Giving yourself a shot of morphine will temporarily stop time, which can be used if you get spotted to walk right up to a guard and start slashing to your heart’s content.

Most of the time you will be having to hide in the shadows waiting for guards that come walking by, then stop and wait for you to stab them in the back. My biggest gripe about Velvet Assassin is how much of a lack of AI the game’s enemies have. Not only does every other guard hum the same annoying tune, but the game play gets very repetitive.

Your typical mission has you sneaking up on a new area then having to listen to two guards shoot the bull for two minutes before one guard starts walking back and forth like the armed robot he is. You then have to time everything perfectly so other guards will not see you committing a murder two feet away from them, and you sometimes have to hide the body. If a guard spots you, they will simply walk slowly toward the box you are hiding behind, and you can then easily take them out with a pistol as they round the corner. This kind of game play belongs on the old Xbox, and not on the Xbox 360.

There is a disguise system where you can turn yourself into Fraulein Violette and attempt to sneak past unsuspecting guards. Similar to Hitman 2 you have to worry about getting too close to guards. If this happens the guards will recognize you, and commence shredding you to pieces with a machine gun.

The graphics are over par for a stealth game. Considering you are performing missions from a dream like state the outside areas are either bright orange for late afternoon settings or deep blue for night missions. The violence factor is relatively light, and characters are small enough to make details in faces and whatever else unimportant. Nothing stands out as far as graphics go except for the radios which look like miniature televisions. The narration does help the game, but the alarm music can become annoying as it sound offs at the slightest noise even if you have not been spotted.

Velvet Assassin has little replay value due to it being a single player game with no online capabilities. The game boasts of sporting 50 different ways of killing guards, but neglects to mention that over half of those kills are from random whack attacks from behind a guard. You would have more fun toying around in a game of Hitman than waiting for some idiot guard to step in a pool of water that happens to be able to be electrified. It’s fun once, but when you get the opportunity to do that to every 5th guard it gets old quick. The achievements can be unlocked in about two run-throughs as long as you do your exploring in each level and if you take your time and you can get through this game in about a week.

Overall, Velvet Assassin should not be overlooked as just another game from an obscure developer. I would contend it makes for a decent stealth game that has a better story than Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and anything beats the stealth action of Vampire Rain. If you want a fresh take on World War Two games Velvet Assassin is definitely one to pick as it does not go overboard and is enjoyable to a certain stealth action degree. The mechanics of the game play do not make this a great game, but it is still a reasonable one.

Tagged as Replay Studios, SouthPeak Games, Stealth, Velvet Assassin, world war 2, WW2