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There was one portion of Velvet Assassin, however, where the soft and silky substance worn by so many pimps the world over made its way into the gameplay. As anyone who has been following our coverage knows, Velvet Assassin is similar to Splinter Cell in several ways. First, you won't be running in guns blazing. Velvet is all about going the stealthy route, sneaking up behind your prey and then using one of the more than 50 execution moves on them. While there are gun fights, just like in Splinter Cell, you won't (or at least, you shouldn't) find yourself up against insurmountable odds while ducking behind pieces of cover and blindfiring over it. Any baddies that you manage to bag will need to be dragged into the darkness to remain unseen.

It's in that darkness where you'll see the one and only sign of velvet. When shrouded in shadows and unseen by the enemy, both your character, Violette Summer, and her health bar are surrounded by a purple film of some sort. What does it resemble? Velvet, of course! When you're in the light the film disappears and you see a standard player model. Hey, they had to work the whole velvet thing in there somewhere, right?

So why is Violette being so stealthy? Well, it's World War II and our heroine is in some sort of coma. At this point we don't know why she's in a coma or why there are armed guards in her room watching over her hospital bed in a slightly menacing way. The level I was shown, the second in the game, takes place in a WWII ghetto. It's essentially a holding ground for prisoners before shipping them off to a prisoner of war camp. Violette makes her way through the ghetto, knifing bad guys along the way and trying to stay out of sight.

I know what you're all thinking, "Wait, didn't you say that Violette is in a coma?" Well, yes, she is. Velvet Assassin takes the classic route of delivering the in-game action in a flashback while the cut-scenes are present-time, at least the ones that I was shown.

There were a few moments during the level when guards were alerted to her presence. Luckily Velvet Assassin has a sort of escape mechanic built in. Throughout the game world there are syringes filled with the glorious drug known as morphine. If Violette should find herself in trouble all she needs to do is inject herself with morphine and time around her will stop. Not only that, but her military garb is replaced by her hospital night gown and she's set free to either escape her assailants or kill them. Be warned: killing a single person while time is stopped (or taking too long to escape) unfreezes the rest of the world around Violette.

• Operating system Microsoft Windows XP / Vista
• CPU Pentium 4 3 GHz or Athlon 64
• 1 GB of RAM
• 5.5 GB of free hard disk space
• 3D-graphics adapter with 256 MB memory that supports pixel shaders 3.0, compatible with DirectX 9.0c (GeForce 6800GS or Radeon X1600XT)
• Sound device compatible with DirectX 9.0s
• DirectX 9.0c
• Device for reading DVD-ROM drive

1. Extract RARs
2. Mount or Burn image
3. Install using setup.exe or run autorun
4. Copy crack from Razor1911 dir to your install folder
5. Play game and have Fun!