Buy Velvet Assassin

hardcore stealth game
i found it very good..i really dont understand all the hate

Velvet Assassin
fast game with modern day graphics with easy controls that moves from location A to B to C and so on,
good amount of action and special effects

good game.

The game's main character, Violette Summer, is baased on the real life secret agent/saboteur Violette Szabo. You experience her missions in Europe through her dreams. In those dreams you become the actor and rely on stealth, wits, and weapons to take out enemies and complete mission objectives. You'll start with a knife and have to be very careful to get to the first objective. It gets harder and more interesting as you acquire more talents and weapons. It is very challenging to maintain stealth and operate with very limited weapons and ammo, which makes it very satisfying when you get to a mission objective.

Gameplay was engaging, exciting, and sometimes spooky. The music certainly sets the tone for you secretative missions and dangerious scenarios. The atmosphere is close to art and can evoke a lot of emotion!

While I thought it was a pretty good game, I have very mixed feelings about recommending it. So this is a conditional recommendation subject to some serious "ifs".

The game is old and relies on the outdated checkpoint system instead of real saves and the controls are sometimes clunky. It probably won't run without some work on your part. Unless you are willing to download additional drivers, tinker with file names, and maybe edit configuration files in an emergency; this game probably isn't for you.

If on the other hand you are willing to fix a few things on your own, if you have the mettle and patience to stalk and kill quietly, and if you can live with some gameplay bugs; then the game is pretty riveting and exciting. It could be a lot better by today's standards, but was pretty good when it was released.

I enjoyed playing for a short time, but decided to move on because of problems with the controls lagging and getting me killed when I played with an Xbox 360 controller with Steam Overlay running.

.....a. It works flawlessly with the Xbox 360 controller if you can live without the Steam Overlay.
.....b. If you want to do screen shots with the F12 key, then the changes you have to make to get Steam Overlay to work may cause laggy performance with the controller, which makes it harder to play the game successfully.
.....c. If you play with keyboard and mouse, the controls are flawless with or without the Steam Overlay - definitetly best played with a keyboard/mouse combo.

FIXING GAME PROBLEMS

1. Game Fails to Launch Issue

....a. Install the NVidia Legacy PhysX Drivers at

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.12.1031-legacy-driver.html


2. Steam Overlay Fix needed if you want to do screenshots with F12

....a. Navigate to your Steam\SteamApps\common\velvet assassin folder
....b. Rename Launcher.exe to Launcher2.exe
....c. Rename Replay.exe to Launcher.exe

Caution Note: May cause laggy performance or other game issues

3. Checkpoint Progress Loop

It is possible to get to a point where you are encountering overwhelming odds and the most recent checkpoint just returns you to the same situation where you inevitable are killed and returned again and again like the movie Groundhog Day. In
such a case it maybe necessary to edit the values in the follow files at

Steam\SteamApps\common\velvet assassin\aio

....a. difficulty.cfg (NPCDamage and PlayerDamage - decrease the former/increase the latter)
....b. weapons.cfg (Adjust damage depending on situation)

PROS

* Very chilling look into a very dark time in history through the eyes of a behind the lines assassin
* Good story style
* Edge of your seat encounters
* Offers around 40 hours of lay time - far more than a lot of other similar assassin type games

CONS

* Predictable enemies and unrealistic situations with enemies facing away from threat vectors
* Stealth is inconsistent - in some areas you appear to be hidden, but can be discovered where in another location the same factors would render you invisible to the enemy
* AI is weak
* Sometimes gameplay is forced to a linear path and slow
* Sometimes controller mode controls are non-responsive resulting in you getting killed; e.g. you must be in a precise position to execute a knife kill or you just stand there getting shot
* Velvet Assassin was released in 2009. Later that year the developer studio, Replay, closed its doors due to insolvency. As a result there is no developer support for this game.

READ THIS REVIEW, IT'S HONEST !!!

Velvet Assassin is a stealth game, set in World War 2, in which you take the role of a british female agent and fight against Nazi Germany in 12 missions.

It's a nice game,probably not a top notch stealth title,but good nonetheless.I would rate it somewhere between 7.5-8/10.

This game DOES NOT deserve the mixed reviews it has now.It has mixed reviews for 2 major reasons :

1) this game might not launch on start for everyone, but this issue can be solved by doing some damn research.I fixed this issue in less than 5 minutes.Most people are just too lazy or stupid to do a simple research.
2)This game relies a lot on stealth,you can't shoot your way through a mission because you die fast.Even if you are sneaky, you will still die quite often.That means the game is quite hard and you need to use stealth.The difficulty of the game is increased by the checkpoint system it uses.So,if you're a ♥♥♥♥♥ who thinks Assassin's Creed or Dishonored are stealth games...this game is not really for you.

PROS and CONS:

Pros:
+ very good atmosphere: the enviroment is simply amazing, you get to see some well made surroundings(like a gestapo prison, or a ghetto from Poland).You will see dead civilians, you will hear different conversations between german soldiers(which might tickle your emotions a little) and so on..
+ good music: the music is tense,without being intrusive
+ good graphics: especially amazing lighting
+ stealth: the game has different ways in which you can kill the enemies, from killing them with the knife, guns, to shooting explosive barrels, barrels with toxic gas, triggering grenades on unsuspecting foes and so on.As I said before, you can't just shoot enemies and expect to finish the mission..you have to be sneaky, observe the patterns the enemies and be really careful,because mistakes are easily punished in this game.Also it uses other stealth elements like hiding bodies,disguises and broken glass to reveal your position when sneaking
+/- checkpoint system.I set this as "+/-" because some people don't like it, as it makes the game more difficult.However I find it more enjoyable than a quicksave/quickload system, because it makes the game more intense and makes you play carefully. Also, the checkpoints are placed pretty conveniently
+ it's a pretty cheap game


Cons:
- the AI is stupid sometimes. However it didn't upset me much, because that's the case with most stealth games (remember splinter cell aka "lightbulb assassin")
- shooting sucks.It's fortunate however that you will stab people most of the time
- the game is linear for most of the time
+/- checkpoint system again( for me it's a + however)

Thanks for reading.

The Good:
- Great lighting and environment design add immersion and remain consistent throughout
- Unique protagonist and narrative offer a refreshing perspective of the WWII setting
- Sound design is good; both music and voice-acting are executed well and add immersion

The Bad:
- Very "trial and error"-based; requires A LOT of patience
- The story is unimpressive and many levels feel fragmented or unrelated to each other
- Controls feel clunky and restricting (in both moving around and in combat)

In Velvet Assassin, the player takes on the role of British agent Violette Summers, infiltrating enemy lines to combat Nazi forces during WWII. Velvet Assassin offers an interesting and unique, albeit frustrating, stealth experience. While the game does some things well, it does many things poorly.

To begin with, Velvet Assassin's story is not very impressive. I found this to be the most disappointing part of the game, especially considering the high potential set in place by the game's unique protagonist and premise. Taking place during WWII, Velvet Assassin sets itself apart from other WWII games through the way in which the story is told.
After suffering a near-fatal gunshot wound during an assignment, agent Violette Summers remains bed-ridden in a state of comatose, recalling her missions through dream sequences. At the beginning of each level, Summers provides a little briefing on her mission, helping along the story via narration.

However, while helping to take down Nazi forces is satisfying in its own right, the goals of each level are pretty much unrelated; one level will revolve around sabotaging a German ammo depot, while the next level involves assassinating a key target. While these objectives seem like fairly standard spy operations, Velvet Assassin does a poor job of tying the levels into an overarching story, making the goals of each of the levels feel insignificant.
The game's story also finishes off in a sort of strange and unsatisfying dead end, which led me to question whether the developers had a different ending planned originally that was scrapped.

While Velvet Assassin certainly has its flaws, it does do some things well.

First of all, the sound of the game is great; the voice acting of both the protagonist as well as the frequenlty overheard conversations of patrolling enemies are believable and interesting. The music also does a great job of adding to the immersion and intensity of sneaking around in the shadows.

The environment and scenery of the game is also another high point. It is clear that a great level of detail was placed into crafting each of the levels, and the striking silhouettes created by the game's bold colors and deep shadows are dramatic and impressive.

The stealth in the game is suspenseful and carries with it a rewarding feeling when exectuted properly. The lighting really comes into play here; as long as Violette remains in the shadows, she is almost invisible to enemies, allowing her to close in for the kill. Velvet Assassin's lighting and ambience in each of the levels is excellent, helping to create interesting and believable environments. The game also provides ample opportunity for the player to manipulate the environment to create more shadows (e.g. disabling a fuse box to shut off the lights) so as to remain hidden.
Some reviewers criticize the AI in this game for being "blind," but in reality, I think the portrayal of stealth in Velvet Assassin is actually among the most realistic I've seen in a game.

However, the realistic and intense stealth does not necessarily translate well into fun gameplay. Ironically, Velvet Assassin's heavy emphasis on stealth is also what cripples the game in many other departments. First, the overall combat in the game is quite lackluster; aiming weapons, particularly in firefights, feels clunky and unnatural. While the game is obviously focused on stealth, there are several instances when sneaking around enemies is not an option and the player is forced into awkward combat situations.

Additionally, because crawling around and methodically eliminating enemies one-by-one is so time-consuming and tense, it makes it all the more frustrating when you are caught while trying to take out the last enemy and are forced to repeat the painstaking process all over again.

However, in spite of all of its flaws, Velvet Assassin is not a terrible game. It's a game that, unfortunately, could have been realized far better, but is certainly enjoyable at times, thanks to beautiful visual design, unique narrative and suspenseful stealth.

I loved the story, and the main character, but I can't in any amount of good conscience, recommend this game. The mechanics are horribly broken. Sometimes they can't see you hiding in a shadow in spitting distance. Sometimes they can hear you perform a silent kill from the other room.

The disguise is a joke, because not only can they apparently see right through it anyway, they can tell if you're in disguise IN ANOTHER ROOM. YOUR DISGUISE IS SO BAD THEY CAN SEE THROUGH WALLS TO IDENTIFY YOU! WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥?!

The shooting sucks, which would be okay for a stealth game, if they didn't force you into run and gun in the last level. They just send waves and waves of nazis after you while you have no cover at all. Awesome.

How does a story this awesome end up in a game this bad?

To stop the crital error you neet this www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.13.0604-legacy-driver.html
From the nvidia web site
•This installer is required for games released around the end of 2007 and earlier. If a game released in that period worked correctly with PhysX System Software 9.12.0613 but no longer works with latter versions the legacy installer is required.
•Supports PhysX SDK versions 2.7.0 and prior as well as 2.7.2.
•NOTE: These SDKs run on the CPU only.
•Games that require this installer include:
◦Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
◦Cell Factor
◦Clive baker’s Jericho
◦Gears of War
◦Pirates of the Burning Sea (POTBS)
◦Switch Ball
◦Velvet Assassin

Deeply, Deeply, Deeply flawed. It wants to be a stealth action game drenched in gritty realism, but the level of bad game design decisions and massive number of bugs keep me from recommending this game to anybody.

* Don't expect to be able to avoid or sneak past encounters. Several guards and soliders carry critical items you'll need to proceed. Which guards, you may ask? The game won't tell you until they're dead.

*AI alternates between being too dumb to breathe and psychic supersoldiers. Sometimes enemies will spot you even though you're clearly in complete darkness. Sometimes they won't. Sometimes enemy soldiers won't be able to shoot you on full auto from three feet away. Sometimes you'll blink and fall over dead. Sometimes you'll kill an enemy and it will be completely silent. Sometimes it will alert the enemies the next room over.

* The shooting mechanics are bad, supposedly to discourage mindless combat. But then the game forces mindless combat on you, most of the time without warning you.

* The environments look good, but they'll repeat themselves so many times it legitimately feels like you're just playing the same level again and again.

* Checkpoints happen once every 20-30 minutes. In gameplay sections with lots of enemies where most of your time is spent waiting doing nothing, this can get very frustrating very fast.

Whatever this game's strengths, they're far overshadowed by really poor design and technical mishaps that really takes me out of the experience. Can't recommend it.

i can partly see why this game gets mixed views. i avoided the game as well due the negative views i have heard and seen on youtube and other sites. but after seeing it for 0.74 cents, it was hard to say no and thought i give it a try regardless.
i ended up liking the game.

so here is my honest review.

now, as some may know, violette summers is based on a real life british spy named violette szabo. here a link to read about her:
http://nigelperrin.com/violetteszabo.htm#.VbWBwfk1rKE

it did make me wonder why they have changed the last name but i guess due her history that she was caught in her second mission and executed, would have been problematic from a historical point of view and maybe also due possible lawsuit issues.

now to the game it self. lets start with the pros and cons of the game.

cons:
- the AI has its dumb moments. (will mention it a bit later)
- repetitive remarks from the enemies.
- the shooting can be at times frustrating. especially the last mission. (will go in to detail later as well)
- at times enemies know where you are, even when hiding in the dark.
- HUBs dont really allow you to go around enemies. forceful confrontation is required.
- the protagonists character is not explained at all.
- no frontal attacks possible unless in morphine mode.
- the menu cant be operated with a mouse.
- must wait for for the counter to show the new number after reloading.

pros:
- very good voice acting.
- great atmosphere.
- beautiful lightening.
- graphics are beautiful as well.
- the german enemies speak actual german (which should be expected since the company is from germany).
- the enemies have at times interesting and funny conversations.
- the english subtitles are very well translated. (i know german).
- it has its challenging moments.
- change costumes to walk among the enemy. (but has its cons as well)
- upgrading system.
- the game requires you to be careful.
- you can lure enemies in to the dark by whistling.
- peak through keyholes.

ok, now to the nit picky stuff.
as i said; the AI has its dumb moments. even when coming across a body, they will look around but then they stop and keep patrolling their fixed root like nothing happened. they dont call for backup or report it, nothing. also, most of the time they know exactly where you are when alarmed, even when hiding in the dark without making a peep or doing anything that would get their attention. and im not talking about enemies who clearly saw me making a mistake, even those who come later to the party where everyone is dead and they still see you in the dark. their weapons already aim in your direction even when a wall, crate is in their field of view. but shoot of course once there is no obstacle in their way.
in one mission when being inside the gestapo building, the enemies spotted me when i was looking through a keyhole to see if the area is clear for me to walk out. for some reason, the soldier who walks past the door was suddenly alarmed and pointed his gun at the door. also oddly he and the others, who were a floor below, never bothered to enter the room i was in. or the the once below bothering to come up. also when being on the catwalk, the enemy below was alarmed since i walked exactly above him. nothing really happened since i was above him and generally invincible since i was wearing a SS uniform. thats a mechanic that could have been looked in too.

which leads me to the change of costumes.
its a plus of course but it has its downside as well that you cant be too close to the enemies. you have a depleting bar when you get too close to an enemy. if you are too close, you get recognized as a spy. i sure would have no complaints if a good looking woman (and she sure looks good in a uniform) comes close to me. like to know how every enemy would know every single female SS officer. would make maybe sense with officers but not some random soldier. you have no chance of being stealthy either.

the shooting mechanic has its moments as well.
especially the last mission you are forced to shoot instead of being stealthy. her accuracy is not always good. but these of the enemies are very precise and can hit you from a distance with a 98% success rate. also it gave me the impression that an enemy can handle a few shots and the other can handle half a magazine. so the ending led to some very frustrating outbursts.
the reloading can be very frustrating as well. you must wait for the counter to display that it is full. if you start changing weapons or put the weapon away, it will not count as a reload. even when she clearly has finished it visually, you must wait a second for it to be displayed.

so much for the picky parts.
now to the parts why i ended up liking the game, even after mentioning a lot of the bad things of the game.
the stealth was very solid and you get immersed quickly. stabbing the enemy did not get old. she kills them in different ways like putting a bullet through their heads, stabbing them between the legs, slicing their throats, and stabbing them repeatably which are all visually very violent.
the game requires you to be careful and i just had to laugh when reading from others that the "checkpoints are too far away". i never thought they are too far away. they were placed very well. if you rush it, of course you will have issues. you have to be careful and observe the enemies what they are doing and then take them out one by one. avoid using the firearm since you will need it by the end of every mission to shoot your way out.
the missions are diverse. so not only "kill this guy and kill that guy". you have to find an fallen agent (and the ending of this mission is not what you expect) or plant a bomb.

also the germans speak actual german and was amusing at times listening to them. since i know german, after growing up in the german speaking part of switzerland, the repetitive remarks they have are these:

Hoffentlich kommt bald die Ablösung. - hopefull the replacement comes soon.
'nen Schanpps wär jetzt gut. - a schnapps would be good now.
So viel Spannung is es ja kaum auszuhalten. - so much tension is excruciating.
Hier passiert ja so wie so nichts. - nothing really happens here.
Und wer macht jetzt den Dreck wieder weg? - and who is cleaning up this mess?
Hab sie erwischt. - i got her.
Sieht nicht gar nicht mal so schlecht aus. Das Luder. - doesnt even look that bad. the minx.

thats pretty much it.

the locations are visually impressive to look at. some of them can be a bit dull but you are in a ghetto, sewers, prison complex, church, catacombs, a huge garden or a village.
also you see some graphic scenes as well like dead civilians lie around, hanging from trees, being burned. and children are among them too. so this alone creates a very intense atmosphere. plus the very well made dynamic lighting add more to these scenes.

even when violette at times looks like a plastic doll, so as some enemies, but since you will see her mainly from the back (which is a nice looking back) and the HUBs as such looks really impressive, i think i can close an eye on that little feature.

the gameplay is solid and works really well with M&K. it displays the M&K buttons, you can customize the layout to your liking but as mentioned before; for some reason you cant operate the menu with a mouse.

so over all, if you like a solid stealth game, have patience and can see away from the bad feature i have mentioned, you might find some enjoyment from this game which i think has been underrated.

I bought Velvet Assassin on discount, it was very cheap and looked interesting. In the beginning it had all the right boxes ticked and I thought surely this is one of those underrated games. After several hours playing I can confidently say it isn't.

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with it, it has good presentation and production value as well as pretty good voice acting. In reality I can't really say something is "wrong" with it, just that the designer(s) made a heap of really weird decisions that led to an incoherent downright boring game.

Here's a list of things that I consider to be bad design decisions that hurt the game a lot:

• You're an assassin and obviously level designers have gone through the difficulty of setting up things so you can get in take out your targets and get out without being spotted. Except when the game suddenly expects you to blow up soldiers, electrocute them, set them to fire in order to get the next "rusty key" as a drop from dead enemies which will open the door out to the next area. That kinda kills the whole purpose of being an assassin.
  
  
• At times instead of giving you something that a female assassin could use to escape, you get a shotgun. Really? a shotgun.. you couldn't have picked something quieter. I played past half the game and not once did I get a silenced submachine gun, sniper or a cross bow or something like that which all existed during the timeline of the game and more assassin-y.
  
  
• First few chapters I noticed the number of weapons and items was very limited, I thought it's going to get better and surely some new mechanics will be introduced as I progress through the game? No. I just kept replaying the same mechanics with the same weapons, no feeling of progression at all for several chapters. The only time something new happened is when I got to wear an officer disguise to sneak into a heavily guarded place by just walking. This disguise only lasted a segment of a chapter and that was the only time I got the option to do it so far.
  
  
• Character level progression could simply be based on experience gained through gameplay, but that makes sense and the designer(s) of Velvet Assassin don't seem to favor that. There are "collectibles" you have to pick up to get experience and some enemies drop collectibles when killed, which is yet another contradiction to the whole assassin thing.
  
  
• I played past half the game and I still didn't get any real story. You got a sort of description of your mission at the beginning of each chapter but that's not a story. Then you get some weird morphine-induced flashbacks. Still not a story. Then the game shows you sleeping in a hospital and two french men discussing killing you or something, repeatedly, for several chapters. Still not a story. I'm really confused who am I supposed to be? who gives me orders? what's my goal? None of that is clarified.

If Velvet Assassin had a real story, richer consistent gameplay mechanics, and a coherent progression, it might have become a great game.