Review | Velvet Assassin

Format: Xbox360 / PC | Genre: Stealth action | Publisher: SouthPeak | Developer: Replay Studios | Out now: £29.99 – £39.99

By Lewis Denby

You have to question some of the developmental decisions made for Velvet Assassin. Like why does Violette Summer’s left nipple have to be showing, as she lies comatose in her hospital bed? And why does taking morphine make her run around in a negligee, pert behind barely covered by the flapping white material?

It’s been no secret that Velvet Assassin’s protagonist is heavily based on World War II spy Violette Szabo, who was obviously a little too French to make it into the game intact. With her stiff-upper-lip British accent and occasional skimpy clothing, Summer is more sex symbol than tragic war hero. It casts a shadow of tastelessness over proceedings, and it’s difficult not to feel Szabo’s identity has been exploited somewhat in the name of gratuitous entertainment.

//Repeat attempts
As Summer, you’ll single-handedly infiltrate a variety of Nazi bunkers, bases and top-secret military facilities, over the course of twelve flashbacks to her time in the war. It’s all familiar, third-person sneakery, with a heavy air of Hitman flooding the senses at every turn. Sometimes, it works: there’s a thick atmosphere as you creep and crawl your way around the maps, the tension reaching the upper echelons of comfort on occasion. But other times, it’s unbelievably frustrating, badly-judged and broken.

The lack of a save-anywhere feature isn’t inherently problematic, but it is when the checkpoints are as thinly spread as this. There are typically at least a couple of challenging sections between each one, and if you fail at either – something you’ll do with an unfairly high frequency – it regularly means repeating up to ten minutes of the game. They’re also irritatingly positioned – often way back before a lengthy section you managed just fine on your first go, or not for another five minutes after the most intensely difficult room. It means there’s rarely a sense of reward until the inevitable escape from each area, and quitting in furious annoyance becomes an increasingly common scene.

It’s an issue compounded by the unpredictable intelligence of enemies. Guards will often walk right up to you, as you nestle yourself in the darkness, without batting an eyelid. But the second you rely on this tactic, they’ll spot you, unfathomably, despite your visibility gauge stating you’re impossible to see. And it becomes worse still when you realise your silent kill ability only works if you’re positioned directly behind a foe, not slightly off to the side. The result is, of course, more repeat attempts, until the desire to continue dissipates almost entirely.

//Ugly beauty
Which is a shame, as when it’s working, it works rather nicely. Its successes are more the genre’s than the game’s, but there’s a heady sense of super-cool as you dart between shadows, hide in cupboards and land perfect headshots from an unseen location. Velvet Assassin knows how to ramp up the suspense, which becomes a real saving grace. And, though the animation is a little off-beat and the textures are somewhat bland, the employment of lighting is frequently fantastic, while dazzling skies contribute further to a delicious and surprisingly diverse aesthetic.

Particularly noteworthy is the work that’s clearly gone into creating a believable set of incidental characters. Enemies talk to one another convincingly, moaning about their duties or wondering when their next break will be. Though their routes are largely predefined, there’s a rather pleasing credibility about their actions and behaviours, one that cements a decent sense of place and an engrossing ambience.

There’s certainly the feeling that, with a little more work and a little more sensitivity, Velvet Assassin could have been something very special indeed. But it feels clumsy and unfinished, a shadow of the game it wants to be. Level design is entirely linear, yet the atrocious map still makes navigation a nightmare. The challenge is welcome, yet it regularly falls off the tightrope of fairness. And the morphine-induced slow-mo mechanic is just ill-advised, out of place and nonsensical. Each of its problems eats away over time, meaning that although Velvet Assassin is by no means a disaster, it’s definitely not an essential purchase either.

6/10