Velvet Assassin is an atmospheric but flawed look at the war to end all wars.
Being set in World War II, one might assume that Velvet Assassin's atmosphere is nothing new. That assumption is completely wrong. The dark gritty realistic lone soldier look at World War II is a refreshing change from the righteous glorious war hero tone that other games set. The game does a very good job at make the Nazi's out as people instead of faceless villains. At the same time Violet is shown as a heartless killer who will stop at nothing to complete her mission. Velvet Assassin flips the script and it works.
Where Velvet Assassin fails in in the game play and design departments. The shooting is busted by a clunky aiming system and lack of bullets. Most missions will start you will nothing but a knife and will force you to find a gun and ammo. These are only found in special lockers that will normally appear right before the game is going to require you to go an a shooting spree. Also these lockers only contain one clip of ammo. This is an odd design decision that I assume was made to put the focus on stealth. But the stealth is completely binary and has no depth what so ever. You are either in the shadows and invisible or not in the shadows and visible with nothing in between. You are either hidden and safe or not hidden and dead. And sometimes what exactly constitutes a being hidden is unclear. There were several times when I would be hiding in only to have a guard spot me in the shadows behind cover from across the room. This would cause me to die and have to replay several rooms again. Other times I would be standing right beside a guard in bright light and he wouldn't notice. This would allow me to swiftly kill him.
Speaking of killing Nazis, that is another area where Velvet Assassin shines. You can shot Nazis. You put the pin off of a grenade, watch them take a few steps, then explode. You can shoot explosive or poison gas barrels to blow up or gas enemies. You can light gasoline on fire to burn enemies. You can send electricity through a puddle to zap an enemy. These extra ordinary ways of killing set up in such a way that if done right you can set off a chain reaction that will wipe out 3 or 4 Nazis. Again, this is a refreshing change from the usual shoot or blow up game play of most World War II games. But even if all you have is your knife you can sneak up an stab a guy in the back. The are tons of kill animations so even simple stealth kills don't get boring.
There must have been too many kill animations because that is the only thing that is animated. Opening doors, flipping switches and climbing ladders are all not animated. Instead doors will magically open or the screen will fade to black an wrap you to the other side of the door which guards can't follow you through. And while you can climb on some boxes you can't climb on other identical boxes. It all works together to make a very odd scripted experience. Much like the disguise section of the game. When in disguise you can not get too close to any guard or your cover will be blown. So you have to walk down a very strict path to proceed.
That is how a lot of the game plays out. You are given a strict path you have to follow. Check points are strictly paced, so you will have to play entire sections over if you die. Every level follows the same strict structure where you sneak around until the end of the level when you get a shotgun and have to shoot your way to the end. The one unique game element that changes this is morphine. Morphine lets you freeze time and kill one guard. This ties in to the story where you are in a hospital and dreaming of past missions. This framing device has you going from mission to mission with no connection between the missions. All you get is a little briefing before each mission and a short cut scene afterwards. This is par for the course for World War II games but it is disappointing from a game that uses the World War II atmosphere so well.
In closing, Velvet Assassin is a uniquely grim look at war that is hell to play. While there is nothing completely broken, the game play is just not fun. I can not recommend this game to anyone.