Customer Reviews

Velvet Assassin

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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".

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?

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!

Warning, this is another STEAM powered game in which they intentionally left it off the box to sell the game.
When I tried to install it, it lagged and froze while it tried to verify my steam account. Then, after verifying that I had an account, and after another 3 minutes of doing nothing, it finally gave me a Play/Option screen. It then forces you to set your graphics preferences before it will let the game start. (This should always default to the best performance settings and let you tweak it later to suit your computer)
Once the game starts, you finally see the main menu which is NOT mouse friendly. It can only be used with the keyboard.
This will be your initial encounter with Velvet Assassin. Good luck
I chose high details and have a NVidia 9800GT card, 3GB RAM and quadcore 6600 processor. Not the best setup but not bad eitherand it didn't look bad for a Southpeak game. The details were pretty clear in walls, clothes, etc. Bushes and foliage were jaggy and less detailed.
Movement was pretty fluid and I didn't get stuck sneaking around objects or pathways.
The initial mission is all stealth. If they see you, you can't fight back??!! They simply shoot you and you go back to the last auto save.
Sneaking - You have to hold down the sneak/crouch key??!! In a game based around stealth, you shouldn't have to hold the sneak key down.
There is no jump/climp key. If you are near something that can be climbed like a ladder, you click on it and it doesn't let you control the climb. in a split second, you are up the ladder and need to be ready to move NOW.
There are too many negetives in this game to pay so much. It's a $20 game in my opinion.

There is no manual Save function. It is a milestone system so you have to get to point x to trigger a save. I usually avoid those types of games because I hate the resulting situation where you keep having to replay 5 minutes of game (die, reload, respawn, redo) to get to the 30 seconds that keeps killing you. And this game has a lot of that.

It isn't anywhere near as smooth as other stealth games I've played, like Splinter Cell (all of them) or Thief (the best stealth games ever).

The rules for concealment were iffy but it was possible to hide and the soldiers would wander off eventually. The bad thing is that the soldiers all had pretty amazing eyesight so replying particular areas umpteen times to figure out the blind spots was kind of a drag.

The download went smooth and install went smooth.

A possible caveat: I put my computer together myself and it was rock steady right up until I moved from Win7 32 bit to Win7 64 bit and installed more RAM. Without getting into that issue, but I had to preface the following - I couldn't play much of the game. It kept crashing. Annoying as heck. However, I can't tell if that is a problem with the game or with my computer so I am giving the game the benefit of the doubt.

For a bargain bin game it is probably worth playing if you're bored and like stealth games enough to put up with the constant replays of certain areas.

Not a run and gun....not many guns and little ammo. Your best friends are the shadows and your fairborn (knife)
Tactical situations are challenging....how to get in position....who to dispatch first. Very little blood, but the kill moves are direct and intense. No team, no squad, character operates alone. Character skills are upgradeable as the game progresses...simple and effective. Graphics are excellent...superior lighting effects adds greatly to the playability of the game. Enemy AI is effective and they all have guns. Character can softly whistle to get guards to come and investigate the sound. Realistic depiction of uniforms, weapons and vehicles.

First i have to say, that i am,
like that Game too, from Germany, so please be lenient with me.

I just wrote that here, because i wandtet to tell you
that this is the first WorldWar-Game i know where the Germans can speak REAL German and do not say things like: "du hättest tot bleiben sollen",
wich means:"you shoult have stay dead"
or:" da geht zu der Stündlich Hotel", wich means:
"there goes to the every hour Hotel"(it is no real sentence)
and that the hotel is Female, like in for example,Call of Duty.
here they are talking in compleete sentinces, wich sounds realy German.
i just wandtet to say that.

the Graphics are good for the time and realy okay for now.
the Voiceacting of Violet is in my opinion realy good,
because she dosn't sound like a navigation system, she feels what she is talking about.

and it is a great feeling while playing that, it, i cant say why.
It's warm, it feels dark, it is not mean-stream.

I enjoy stealth games like Thief and others so I wanted to try this game for some time.
Install was quick and I was into playing in no time. The 1st mission was kinda easy then it starts a massive climb into the hard, very hard, wow is this fun difficulty levels. I found it works best to play till you find yourself making to many mistakes. Take a break and come back later with a fresh mind. Then it is not as frustrating when you get killed so often. I would have given the game 4 stars but when your trying to fight and the controls auto change the buttons so you start opening things rather than shooting or stabbing that is really bad. (let that be a warning. Never try to fight near an object you can interact with as it will mess you up.)

The graphics and sound are good and work well to keep you tense during the right moments. Over all for the price this is a really good buy.

The game installed smoothly even with Steam, however the game constantly crashes with no error message. I find myself trying 15 times to get past one area before it randomly closes. Even at $4 for the PC it is a waste of time to fight with it. Looked cool years ago. I'm sure it could be fun. Guess I'll never know.

I really don't know if this game is any good or not. I bought it last Christmas on sale for $5 because I enjoy stealth games, but after downloading several times over several days, I got sick of getting the game 75% installed then getting an installation error message over and over. I guess I'll stick to my PS3 to play games on !!!!