It isn’t every day that a game takes a slightly political standpoint, or tries to right a wrong or change an attitude towards a class or race of people but ultimately, despite being a relatively mediocre title, Velvet Assassin does just that.
Based during World War II, Velvet Assassin sets you the task of completing Violette Summer’s dream. Summer herself is on her deathbed, and doesn’t have long left. She replays the events that led up to her current state in intricate detail in her mind, but you’re the one that has to do all the donkey work, so to speak. As the title suggests, Violette is (or was) an assassin for the allied forces, generally tasked with taking out key German strongholds or personnel. It’s an interesting and clever setup, and despite the setting that will be oh-so familiar to gamers everywhere – it really does feel fresh.
Before any of that though, you’re forced to deal with the consequences of the war via the introductory sequences. Despite not being only competently done from a graphical standpoint, images of murdered, wounded and torched soldiers, civilians and even children will be enough to put off those who have a low threshold for such things. Shortly after, the image of – granted, just the lower half – two hanging bodies will get all of those who weren’t already taken aback, to sit up and take notice. From the outset, Velvet Assassin brings the ultimate futility and brutality of war to the forefront of your mind.
The game is majorly focused on stealth – as you’d expect from the title. Often, you’ll have to wait for two Nazi soldiers to end their conversation and for one of them to walk away, so that you can make an attempt on the now-singlehanded man’s life. The conversations are both voiced and subtitled, I expect so that you don’t miss a single word of the powerful dialogue. And it really can be powerful stuff. Some enemies become instantly hated on a higher level, as they joke about the shocking games of execution that they play with their prisoners whilst with others, you feel a synthetic kind of regret for what you’re about to do – simply because of the backstory that has been presented by the target during their conversation piece. You know that the character doesn’t want to be there and in turn, you know that the character’s life and actions are based – albeit with a level of inaccuracy and drama – on real happenings. I’ve felt many things when playing games. Power, anger, hate, rage, confusion, excitement, expectation, joy, fear and relief are all familiar friends when holding a controller. Regret is not something that I could add to that list until now.
I’ve never put a game down and just sat for ten minutes, thinking about what I’d just done. What one side did and what my forefathers did to defend against them, in order to secure my land and my basic human rights is the tale that is told, and that tale is told in ways that makes good old English pride swell up in my chest. Of course we – again, I say this as an Englishman – are proud of those that sacrificed so much for us. But, we’re never really prompted to think about how the lowest ranks of the opposition felt about it all. This game provides that prompt. Maybe – just maybe – that’s all a bit too political for this site. The point I’m making, is that Velvet Assassin’s scripting and story is something that hasn’t been done before – despite the initial perception being that it’s just another World War II game with a different slant – and storytelling in general has rarely been done this cleverly in the world of gaming.
Despite all of the emotion that Velvet Assassin generates, the thing that causes the most pain is that the game isn’t particularly very good. Violette has to be stealthy practically all of the time, hiding out in shadows and taking cover from the evil line-of-sight whenever possible. The overall darkness of the game promotes this and to begin with, you’ll probably be a little more careful and stealthy than the game asks you to be. This would be fine, but that perceived required level of stealth is what the game genuinely should require. It doesn’t, and your discovery by the enemy feels somewhat random at times, as if with one enemy you could march right up to them in broad daylight and slit their throat, whilst another would draw their gun on you if you so much as let a single bead of sweat form upon your brow whilst fully covered by darkness.
Whilst being competent, the graphics lack a certain finesse and for every superbly claustrophobic room, there’s another dull and overused one waiting to bring the game down a notch or two. The characters are somewhat less solid than they should be too, with downed enemies getting stuck in walls as you try to shift them to a less obvious resting place. Also, even though you have a map just a button’s press away, it’s far too easy to become disoriented and although that’s fun to begin with since it just adds to the tension, it quickly becomes an annoyance. Repetition is a problem also, although with the amount of stealthy kills that are required by the game, it isn’t surprising. Turning off a blaring radio, for example, will cause an opposition commander to march back into a room to investigate, so you can sneak up behind him and take him out – but when you’ve done it six or seven times already, it gets old fast. The same goes for whistling to get the target’s attention – although this presents problems in itself given that the enemy will pretty much always come lumbering up to see where the noise is coming from, spot you instantly even though you’re in the shadows, and take you out with ease. Limited weapons are available to defend against this, although they are far too weak to cause any serious damage if you do get into a close-range firefight, and defeating soldiers via electrocuted puddles of water is innovative, but ultimately overused. One point of note is that Violette can use morphine in order to promote herself to a higher state of consciousness. As this is indeed all a dream, the game world is drenched in light and paused as you roam about freely in your doped-up state. This is great for crossing large expanses of ground with little cover, in order to get to an enemy before he spots you – but is an all too rare highlight.
In the final judgement, Velvet Assassin is a title that I wish that I could recommend to all. The (sometimes) controversial nature of the story would alone be enough to allow me to do so, was the game itself actually any good. There’s a school of thought that recommends that you get a book if you want a story and this game has at least tried to fight against that and should be applauded for it. Ultimately though, whilst posing some tough questions and really making you think, Velvet Assassin is a distinctly average title that fails to deliver on its promises with any regularity.
