Velvet Assassin Preview

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It's all good stuff, but the ingenious methods of meting out death all take a back seat to the extraordinary Morphine Mode. If it all gets too much, Violette can inject herself with morphine, at which point the action slows down, the screen goes wibbly-wobbly and she appears in the aforementioned skimpy nightie, swiftly despatching nearby Nazis. Medal of Honor it isn't, and the best explanation we managed to garner is that when Violette is dreaming about moments of extreme peril, she starts bucking in her hospital bed and the medics have to pump her with morphine to calm her down.

Either way, it's as unusual approach, and one that probably wouldn't have worked with a male character - the nightie wouldn't fit, for starters.

"For a sneaking game I think a female lead is quite a good idea," says Jungnickel, "because - mostly male - players I think will care more for a female character that he likes. She's more fragile, easier to hurt, you don't want her to die. I'd take much more care than I would of Sam Fisher, because I don't care if he dies."

One of the main criticisms of stealth games is that once your cover is blown, it ceases to be a stealth game. As the saying goes, you can't put toothpaste back in the tube. However, in Velvet Assassin, seemingly you can.

"You can re-hide," confirms Jungnickel. "You can reset every situation by running away and waiting for everyone to calm down. That's basically the mechanic that we loved in the Manhunt game, which I think is still the best sneaking mechanic of all the games. It takes a while but people will definitely calm down and you can have a retry."

This gives us an idea for a film that crosses The Great Escape with St. Trinian's.

As for other 'sneaking' games that Replay respect, Jungnickel says, "The Hitman game had some mechanics that I liked, especially the camouflage. In this you can take an SS uniform and run around undetected."

It's a further reminder of the political implications of developing a World War II game in Germany. However, Replay MD Marc Möhring doesn't see any conflict.

"I think we have grown up with it," he says. "If you're going to movies, if you're reading books, the historical shadow you see it every time. You see great pictures but in the end we are losing so from the political and educational aspect, we are very liberal and open here. We know what we did, and we have no problem with it, my generation and the generation after. And we're sitting on one of the buildings that was used in the Second World War. They tried to bomb this down but it was too strong."

Perversely, World War II was concluded quicker than the development of Velvet Assassin, which began in 2000 as Resistance, then Sabotage, accompanied by a litany of bankrupt publishers, and "a long story of disaster." It's finally shaping up though, and is promised for the end of this year. Morphine at the ready.