Velvet Assassin Review (Caspian Roach)
A stealth game lives or dies by one thing - consistency. This game fails at following its own rules.
This Hitman-wannabe game has some decent stealth sections but is pretty bad at almost everything else.
Let's start with the basics: you are essentially invisible when in the shade (unless enemy is in touching distance). It often makes zero sense visually, as you'll just be standing in the open and the enemy will not be able to see you, but that's fine, it's a game mechanic... EXCEPT the game, especially at later levels routinely throws situations at you in which enemies suddenly are able to see you in the shade, despite the indicator saying you are hidden. Is it a bug? Dunno. Is it explained by the game as some special enemy type? No. It gets even MORE ridiculous in the nighttime levels, as they follow the EXACT same rules as the daytime levels. Out in the open? Everybody can see you from half the map away, but if you're in the shade (yes, nighttime has clearly defined shadows despite having no visible light source), you're hidden. It gets so silly that sometimes you, the player cannot even see the enemy before they see you because the distant fog hides the enemies completely, but they can see you clear as day. I've posted some examples in the screenshots.
Enemies can immediately spot you from half a map away and instantly enter the alarmed state even on normal difficulty. This is especially egregious when you're trying to use cover that is not in the shade to hide from enemies. There's a big chance the enemies will just straight up see you and immediately start shooting at you if even a part of you isn't in cover. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
The disguise sections make negative sense - you are said to not do anything suspicious while wearing one, but what the game actually wants you to do instead is just to stay out of a certain radius around each enemy unit. Never mind that it looks ridiculous that somebody just walks around every person, walking in the bushes and the grass and not on the main road. But okay, fine, we can work with that. Except that radius around enemy units extends VERTICALLY and THROUGH EVERY SOLID OBJECT. Meaning if somebody is below you on a different floor and you DARE to walk in that exact spot, you get instantly spotted and the enemies start hunting you. Ridiculous. Also if you even try to do the disguise sections without a disguise, the enemies IMMEDIATELY telepathically hone in on you as soon as you enter the designated area, through cover and solid objects. It got so silly that even trying to look through a keyhole of a door that separated the disguise section from normal section immediately alerted every enemy behind that door.
The ending of the game sucks, hard. There are no stealth options to complete the last levels as far as I could see, so if you haven't been leveling your combat stats, prepare to suffer and restart from checkpoints as you're forced to shoot down tons of enemies that can kill you in 2-5 hits (and your health only regenerates up to like 10%). And to top it all off, the story (what little there is of it) is left unfinished and unsatisfactory.