Velvet Assassin Reviews

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List Price: $4.99
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I picked this up from Steam after its initial release. The game seemed to be getting decent player reviews and that usually helps me decide to buy a game or not.

Velvet Assassin is a stealth game at heart. If you've played any of the Splinter Cell games you will be right at home here. However, unlike the PC version of Splinter Cell games this seems to be more geared toward the consoles or XBox 360.

You play as a British spy or secret agent (like James Bond) which is actually a female that has been hospitalized after a unknown tragic accident. As you play through the story you will have various tasks to complete like destroying a fuel depot. Your main task is to get to your targets without being noticed by killing anyone that gets in your way. It's a simple and effective stealth concept however the way you perform these tasks is a bit arcadish compared to many other PC stealth games of the past.

The controls are geared toward a XBox control scheme. You can not navigate the main menus with the PC mouse just the keyboard. The stealth kills are animated cut-sceens which are a bit cheesy to me. Climbing latters, going through doors or crawling under objects are not shown in real time as you will appear on the other side without actually going through the motions.

What saves this game is it's errie and surreal stealth atmosphere. The story is not bad but can get confusing sometimes especially on what happened to her and why she is in the hospital. The music is well placed as you will her creepy sounds when your inside dark hallways and buildings.

The graphics are wonderful and very vibrate. I liked how the designers use color to set the mode in various levels. One level you may have bright reds and oranges and in another level you will have dark greens and blues. This is very creative to make the atmosphere look right for the story plot.

Overall, this game is not very long and you will finish it fairly quickly if you have played these types of games before. I didn't like the console feel but it seems more PC games are just becoming XBox ports where the only difference is that it will play on a PC rather than a console system. This is sad that developers are that cheap and I feel this game is way too expensive for the quality you get. The gameplay does not warrent $50 as the publishers suggest. My advise is to wait until this game comes down to $30 or below due to the length, quality and the fact that there is no multiplayer. You can replay missions in different ways which adds little replay value.

If your looking for a WWII stealth game where you can play as a female British secret agent that stabs Nazi soldiers to death in a immersive atmosphere then Velvet Assassin is a good game. Just don't pay full price for a average steatlh game that resembles a console game to the "T".

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I was curious about this game, since it's release. When I got the opportunity to pick it up...I was pretty amazed. The Physx graphics are good. Gameplay has a bit of a learning curve, but once you figure out the moves, etc...this game is a decent challenge and worth buying. the story was based on a real life WWII British assassin. For the price...the gameplay is fun!

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First the basics:

Video 4.5; Positives include generally crisp resolution in higher settings, excellent use of light and shadow, unique coloring for mood and place. Negatives are few, but I found a couple of scenes too dark in the middle distance to see a foe, and the colors could get a little monotonous.

Sound 5; excellent sound and musical score matched the atmosphere and locations well. Sound effectively used to generate tension when hunted, reinforce atmosphere. German voices add to atmospheric effect and are correct. Screams of people caught in a burning church were appalingly realistic and made me rush to try to save them, immersing me thoroughly (though very disturbing). Music genuinely haunting, especially end theme.

Gameplay 3.5; Positives include stealth ability (similar to Splinter Cell and actually a little like the Theif games. Negatives are the "dream-like" morphine rush, which I never used beyond the first mission because it detrated from the realism and you do not have to to win, the inability to pick up dropped weapons (other than the morphine rush, perhaps the single most unrealistic element of the game), and the fact that generally you can avoid the enemy AI by using vertical movement (go up or down a stair and they lose you). They also seem to lose interest if you stay hidden for ahwile, which is not too realistic, either, but makes sense as a trade-off for gameplay.

Atmosphere 5; like the old Thief games, with their dark visuals and eery music and sound themes, I found myself quite immersed and absorbed in this experience. Teh story is interesting if a bit difficult to pull together early as it's told in falshbacks of a sort. The last missions, from escaping the hospital and then heading into the village, in which Violette is running around in her undies with a Luger, knife and StG43 (one of the first assault rifles, invented by the Germans of course :-)) stretched credulity to some extent; I mean, just where is she stashing the guns and ammo and knife anyway...? The cinematics for stealth kills are actually pretty good, though randomized (might show you using the butt of your shotgun instead of the knife in the groin). I especially liked how Violette gets much more brutal as she vents her frustration and hatred on her targets starting in the hospital escape, often killing them and then stabbing them again and again with abandon nice way of seeing her state of mind.

Replayability 2; Not much, unless you want to play it again at a differnt difficulty level or try some different tactics to maximize experience points, collectibles, etc...

Commentary: Overall, I found the game one of the more enjoyable and engaging PC stealth shooters I have played in some time, despite being an obvious console port (bummer, I pine for the good old days when the PC was king...sigh). Just so you know my bias, I really enjoyed the Thief and Splinter Cell games, and to some extent Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (in stealth mode). If you like this type of game, even if a bit linear, appreciate the drama of WW2 espionage and well crafted, atmospheric envionments accented by solid visuals combined with excellent sound effects and music, you will like this game. Be warned as with Thief and Splinter Cell, you cannot 'run and gun' your way through this and live.

Recomended "extra": Use the flare gun for a treat screaming Nazis on fire. Or hit the tank on the flamethrower troops for a similar effect suh-weeeet. And bottom line, what can be better than killing Nazis with a knife, from behind, or roasting them alive?

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Southpeak delivered my purchase of Velvet Assassin on time and on the exact date shipping said I would receive the product. As far as I am concerned they appear to be a reliable vendor.

The game itself is very worthy of its price tag. Although, I believe Steam is selling it for slightly less at $1.99 $2.99. I think. Gameplay is exceptional yet not spectacular. If you own a console I would recommend Splinter Cell: Blacklist. In the genre of stealth video games it rates very high.

Velvet Assassin is not an easy game. I am running Windows 7 on a Dell Inspiron 570 Desktop PC, 64-bit processor with 2.00 GB RAM. As a result of my PC not being built for gaming I had to run Velvet Assassin on the lowest settings possible.

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Like many others here, I like a great stealth game. Thief comes to mind, as do the Splinter Cell games, and I liked them all. Even played Deus Ex HR through trying to be stealth.

Velvet Assassin is a good try. Its set in dreary WW2 settings, and you get to kill all sorts of nazis, so that makes it at least worth trying. Its based on a real life WW2 assassin and secret agent, as well as has cool locations, so that makes it visually appealing in general.

Its a truly austere game, where you get a knife, and a couple of bullets here and there, but there are minimal resources, and you have to make the best of what you can find. I like a good challenge, so I did in fact enjoy parts of the game.

Now for the bad news. As many people have commented, it does suffer from bad consolitis... The worst being that its a checkpoint save system, with sometimes HUGE wait times for a save. You can spend 30 minutes trying to carefully take out several opponents, and then at the last minute, find that you're dead from some minuscule thing you didn't see. Then you have to play the same 30 minute section over and over and over and over. This kills games for me every time. I'm just sick and tired of this showing up in more and more games.... are quicksaves really all that hard to code into a game? Its just lazy on the part of the game developers.

Another unfortunate thing, which I could probably overlook if there were quicksaves, is the fact that sometimes, the enemies seem to know you're there, they come after you and kill you, even though you have no idea why. So no quicksaves, with random deaths, make it just unplayable for long periods of time.

I guess if you have lots of time on your hands, then this could be a good game. Its too bad actually, as the game overall has massive potential, but was failed miserably by the awful save system, and random deaths.

Just a bit of additional balance would have made this a solid 4 star game.