Keys, letters, and other trinkets, then. Velvet Assassin has a fixation on locked doors, which require keys to open as British agents are too polite to pick locks. This is yet again a videogame mechanic shunted in, and playing Hunt-the-Key has never been fun. In this case, it’s there to make sure you kill every Nazi in the area, because they’re almost always the ones holding them. Letters, on the other hand, are there to point out that not all Nazi soldiers were hideously evil, and some were just doing the job they had. Which would be understandable were it not that for one; you have to kill pretty much every Nazi in the game, and for two; you rarely see the other side, with almost no acts of horrendous violence towards anyone other than Nazis up until the last few missions of the game. I doubt I’m the only one who felt slightly uncomfortable after completing a mission only to be told that yes, the submarines were sunk, but the bombing run also killed 30,000 innocent civilians. More uncomfortable still when one of the enemies killed had just penned a letter to his girlfriend telling her that he couldn’t abide what we has being asked to do anymore and he loved her very much. 

The plot, such as it is, is that the game is told in flashback, with Violette lying comatose on a hospital bed. The missions are her past exploits, and during them, you occasionally get flashes back to the hospital room with people discussing what to do with her. These tend to crop up at the worst possible times, mid-mission, with no warning whatsoever, and are largely pointless as the real plot only kicks in when you arrive at the penultimate mission. The flashback basis does give way to the morphine mechanic which, honestly, is quite a nice touch. At any given point that you have morphine, which despite its medical uses is still lying around slightly more regularly than I’d expect, you can tap a button to go into a morphine mode. Violette’s model shifts to her nightdress-wearing hospital form, the screen goes white and blurry, and all enemies are frozen for a short time. In this mode, you can perform stealth kills from any direction, and it’s a nice way of picking off a particularly troublesome guard whose patrol intersects too regularly with the others. It doesn’t function so much as a Get Out Of Jail Free card, as it only allows for one murder (although it can be used to get further away.) It’s more for making difficult groups of enemies easier. 

The fundamental flaw, though, is in the stealth mechanics, and the way they interplay with everything else. They usually work serviceably – or they would, if the game didn’t keep changing the rules on you. Sometimes, areas previously clear will mysteriously fill up with new enemies, with no prior warning. The first time this happened I assumed it was a bug, but no, there are scripted respawns which are so rare it feels unfair to walk out of a room and immediately be spotted. At times the game becomes a shooter, which doesn’t work thanks to the arsey aiming. At times guards will spot you from miles away when they shouldn’t. Guards routinely have scripted conversations that are entertaining the first time you hear them, but are occasionally hampered by the script, such as one conversation on the very first mission in which one guard complains that another just spat on his face - while they’re both wear gas masks. It’s worth noting that the first time you hear them won’t be the last, either, because there’s no manual save and checkpoints occur every five or six rooms. With gun controls the way they are and escape from enemies who’ve spotted you almost impossible in the tight, linear areas, being spotted generally results in death, which results in a reload ten minutes back. If there’s a conversation or two in the way, then you’re going to have to sit through them again because guards facing each other are, obviously, impossible to stealth kill. 

Amusingly, guards being alerted to your presence doesn’t necessarily make them immune to the backstab. A tactic I began employing towards the end was to run at them, and run behind them to get a stealth kill while they turned around. This sometimes even felt necessary as guards move too quickly for you to catch up when they’re patrolling, and while there’s an experience system in play that lets you increase certain attributes, I never really noticed the one that increases your movement speed while sneaking actually making a difference. 

Even with you start to understand the occasionally Byzantine stealth mechanics, Velvet Assassin is a broken and unpolished game, with a few bugs scattered around for good measure. Good graphics and sound can’t make up for a stealth game that lacks some of the most minor touches we’ve come to expect, like the ability to shut doors, or slightly more open areas. If you’ve already played Thief, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, and Hitman, then play them again, as this isn’t even worth it on a rainy weekend.

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