Velvet Assassin

[Jason]

Well I bought Velvet Assassin, some of you may know this game from it's original title Sabotage 1943 but they changed the name and sold out to the console. The PC game is a bit limited and a bit of a poor port but the game looks very nice. The game play is different to what I have played before. Fans of the Thief series will be happy though, never played Thief myself but I know you can hide in the darkness of the shadows and that is exactly what you do here. Not a game for you FPS lovers but definitely one for the stealth loving types. If you liked Commandos, Death to Spies, Thief and perhaps Splinter Cell I am sure you will enjoy this if you are looking for a WW2 stealth game. I paid $5 on ebay for a new sealed version

For those that have played Death to Spies, this is a fair bit slower and you will end up doing things more than 3 times - if you're as bad as me at it... I'm enjoying it but I enjoy anything with a WW2 theme as I'm sure you are probably aware of now

[Jason]

I have just finished Velvet Assassin. I did sort of rush through it a bit because I want to play The Saboteur but I feel I gave it a good run. My previous comments about it being a poor port are incorrect it's just a very basic game. Their are "environmental puzzles" but these are simply a matter of moving a crate, jumping on a crate, jumping off a crate and going through a small tunnel. Not exactly difficult to solve. The game is good, it's just a shame they didn't do more in the way of puzzles.

The best part about the game is sneaking around in the shadows killing guards and killing them in interesting ways. Every time to knife a guard there is an animation, they are cool to watch but sometimes are annoying when you just want to get on with the game and other times very satisfying when it takes you a while to sneak up on a guard. You can use the environment to your advantage to kill guards by shooting a barrel that explodes, shooting a barrel with gas in it, shooting oil on the ground that ignites.... pulling the pin on a grenade and watching the guy walk into a bunch of guards talking is my favourite.

The missions are pretty long, save points can be a problem. Yes this game has checkpoints you must reach, it's a pain in the arse sometimes but it get's better later on in the game oddly enough. The game follows a story and each mission builds onto that story. Throughout the game there are dream sequences that sometimes just feel out of place or thrown in there for no good reason. I found them just to be annoying, although they all make sense at the end, they probably will just annoy you. That said they can be skipped. Mission objectives are nothing special, steal this, kill this guy and plant bomb on the big red flashing mark.

There are letters that you pick up that give details and hints to missions, sometimes they don't and are just personal letters. You can listen in on guards talking, sometimes they talk shit other times it is useful but annoying when you have to reply that part of the mission. There is no easy way to skip it apart from shooting them or distracting them.

You can collect random stuff that gives you points and you can upgrade your characters few attributes. It's really a complete waste of time IMO.

Now, about a third or so into the game it starts getting very grim and dark. This game is definitely not for children because of all the very bad stuff it has. I don't like playing games that are overly grim and I wish this game didn't have some of the stuff it did. It makes sense for the story and is of course accurate to what the Nazi's did. It's definitely a darker look into World War 2.

Good stealth game, great looking game, could have been more complicated in gameplay but worth playing

See some screenshots below, there was no screenshot key so these are only of a couple of levels. They don't show the full range of environments.

For a good review check out GameSpot oddly enough!






Very nice looking levels, they create a nice atmosphere but it failed to suck me in like H&D


Dragging a body around


Listening to guards talking about shit, sometimes it is useful to the mission


Killed some guards by blowing up a barrel that blew up gas barrels

[wanderer1825]

Just bought the game from ebay. New for ?3.99.
Will see how it goes.

[wanderer1825]

Well I've tried to get the game to play, but, no good.
I've tried everything that the various forums suggest but it keeps coming up with errors.
I always have this trouble with steam.
Other games play OK but not steam games.

[Jason]

How can you have problems with playing steam? what errors do you get? never heard about anyone not being able to play a steam game before - only that they have some problem with the concept