Velvet Assassin - First Impressions

I've championed Daniel Floyd's video gaming lectures on here before, especially with regard to non-writers writing for games. I originally thought that Fear 2 would be the ultimate argument for this. No, it turns out. Velvet Assassin is.

Things start off badly in Velvet Assassin. In the PC version, at least, you can't adjust any visual settings. At all. This almost certainly means I'm not running it on my native resolution which goes some way to explaining why the graphics look to rubbish.

I'm then treated to an intro sequence which breaks every rule of writing in the book. It feels like it was written by a teenager for a creative writing course at school who has heard about themes, motifs, imaginary and so on but hasn't worked out how to use them yet. It falls into the old trap of expressing something faintly poetic in the hope that it will sound profound rather than pretentious and shitty.

It also used two similes in a sentence once. That sort of thing makes me cry.

Anyway, the game.

The game loses big points in the first few minutes by having a huge (and I do mean huge) sign that flashes up whenever it autosaves that says "CONTENT SAVING DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR SYSTEM". I'm playing this on a PC, guys, we don't need to worry about shit like that. I am kind of resigned to messages like this but it's the first time where I've encountered one which flashes up in the middle of the damn screen which makes it impossible to ignore.

The controls are also fairly rubbish. They're not especially bad but they're imprecise knock offs of the Splinter Cell system.

So what about the gameplay? Well, it's unfortunate that this game has emerged a few weeks after Riddick. Riddick demonstrated that stealth gameplay could be intense, brutal and thrilling all at the same time. Velvet Assassin demonstrates that it can also be fairly dull.

Honestly, though, I didn't get very far into the game. I sneaked around under a bridge where the game explained that a purple line around my character indicated that I was concealed (if you think that would break any sense of immersion, you'd be right). I climbed up a bridge where I was amused to find the developers had been too cheap to animate the character climbing off the ladder onto the bridge. Instead, the screen faded to black when I was at the top of the ladder and faded up again with me on the bridge.

That bit was quite nostalgic, actually, I haven't seen a game do that since 2002.

I then sneaked up behind a drunk guard, stabbed him from behind then sneaked up behind another guard who wasn't drunk and stabbed him from behind. Yes, yes, I thought, this is all very well. What else can I do?

I let the next guard spot me as I ran up to him. Maybe I can disarm him in a cool way or something, I thought. No, no I can't. I can't do anything in fact. I couldn't even stab him. I had to just stand there and get shot.

It was at that point where I thought - Oh, that's the way it's going to be, is it? Fuck you - and turned the game off.

Velvet Assassin doesn't have a demo for reasons that should now be evident so if you're really determined to play it, for gods sake pirate it first.



In other news, there's a demo for Zeno Clash out so I suggest having a look. I didn't like it but I'm sure a lot of people will.