Here is my take on the hottest sleeper video game to hit your local video game store shelves this spring.
Slight backgrounds: Losely based on the life of real life Assassin Violette Szabo, the game births you in the midst of Violette Summer on a morphine high contemplating her life's worth during her tour of war in France, 1944. "I long to be back in the war, that was my true home," she states. After a series of flashbacks, you are thrust into your first mission.
I'm a stickler for camera angels and the fluidity of controls. I was pleased to see this is a third person game, with full 360 degrees of camera angles. As most first levels are mainly used as a sort of learning tool, you immediately see that your ability to "sneak" is going to be a dependence thruought the game. I'm a fan of games that require strategy instead of walking into a room and shooting up a place. You start out with only your slaying knife, and in the beginning the only way you're going to get your kill count higher is by sneaking up on your enemy and striking him from behind. You start to get the hang of hiding in dark corners, bushes, sides of buildings and behind boxes at the same time always keeping one eye on the SS officer in front of you lest you make a noise and he draws his gun and comes charging.
Best part about Velvet Assassin can be summed up in two words, ready? Morphine. Mode. Take a look at your transformation upone immediately injecting yourself with the good M:
When you're in a pinch, or an SS officer is in a spot where sneaking is out of the question, Morphine Mode will pause time into a dreamlike state as you slip into your nightgown and run slow motion amidst floaty blood platelets. Unless you've leveled up some, Morphine Mode only lasts about ten seconds, and once you've killed it abruptly ends.
Finding collectables and other such treasures will help you gain experience points and ultimately let you level up in three categories: Stealth, Morphine, and Strength. Collectables can be found in either little hiding places around the level, or after you've ransacked the body of a slain SS Soldier. After 1000 points (each collectable is worth 100), you get prompted to Level Up.
My main question about halfway through the second level: Do you get weapons? Yes and no. Yes because you are awarded with a Colt in a locker with seven bullets, but once the bullets are gone you're back to your trusty knife. My main complaint is that there are never bullet packs to refil your Colt in the beginning. Level three ends with you toting a large shot gun on your back, but as level four begins it's gone from your inventory, so that was curious.
I'm halfway through Velvet Assassin. Yes the missions take a bit of planning and timing, but that's what makes this interesting to me. There is a lot of just sitting, waiting, and listening to random rapid conversations in German (one random convo was about two SS soldiers fighting over chocolate). And I'd like to note that the missions are NOT hard, it's when you slip up and make a noise that makes them all come running and that's when I die.
I love the ambiant of the game, you really do feel thrown back into WWII Nazi-ridden France. The graphics have been well thought through as seen in this image below, an expample of shaddowing:
XPLAY's Morgan Webb stated that she didn't like how every move was dictated through narration or subtitled prompts, but I actually invite it. I'm not the best critical thinker so little snippets of guidence are welcomed by me. What's better than being a beautiful Assassin and hiding in the shaddows while slaying Nazi's all night? Yeah, you let me know if you can top that.
