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Review for A Stroke of Fate: Operation Valkyrie

Stroke of Fate
Stroke of Fate

If you find the term “historical adventure” to be immediately synonymous with “boredom,” it would be hard to blame you. There are plenty of examples of adventure games set in specific historical periods that leave little impression, other than “Man, I’m glad I wasn’t around back then if everyone is this dull.” Unfortunately, despite its unusual premise, it would be fair to have similar worries about A Stroke of Fate: Operation Valkyrie, with its World War II-Germany setting and heavy reliance on real-life events and esoteric German historical figures.

Operation Valkyrie casts you as fictional Standartenführer (regiment leader) Gerhard Mayer in 1944. The war is clearly beginning to turn against Germany’s favor, with the Allies advancing and the Soviet threat looming and only the most delusional devotees of Hitler certain that the Third Reich will prevail. You are one of a group of SS officers that has secretly put a plan into motion to assassinate Adolf Hitler and restore order and control to Germany.

The first half of the game takes place contemporaneously with the actual July 20, 1944 Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, as you work fulfilling two roles. First, there is your day job with the SS, assembling reports on enemies of the State and performing surveillance. Meanwhile, you also take whatever opportunities are available to further your conspiracy work, making contact with others in the resistance and secretly undermining your own department’s activities without being detected.

Most of us with a passing knowledge of WWII history are aware how Operation Valkyrie ended, and that outcome is not altered by this game as it transitions to the second act, which takes place at the Adlerhorst castle, a stronghold of Hitler in his later, more paranoid years. You’ve been assigned to specific duties here, but at the same time find potentially the best chance you’ll ever have to bring an end to Hitler’s life. Again you will interact with a number of German military personnel, including the frightening real-life Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, as you seek fellow conspirators to help put your plan into motion. The game even features a brief cameo by Der Führer himself in a moment that resonates with his desperate desire for power.

This is mostly a spoiler-free review, but it’s hardly conspiratorial to point out that a sequel to the game (Operation Bunker) has already been announced, so you should know that you won’t find ultimate satisfaction in the crumbling of Nazi Germany at the end of this game. What you will find is a reasonably impressive amount of attention to authentic German history, a number of little details that will prove fascinating to WWII enthusiasts—and then underneath all of that, a pretty bland, short, and unpolished adventure game.

Operation Valkyrie uses a very traditional interface of left-clicking to walk and interact, right-clicking to examine. It is a very slow-paced game, with a constant lack of urgency communicated by its dreary characters, even during times of presumable crisis. Progression involves moving back and forth between the locations available to you very frequently, though the game does have a couple intelligent features to mitigate this: a fast-travel map and the ability to instantly move to a new room by double-clicking. Unfortunately, no one thought to add a double-click run option, as the walking speed is interminably slow (you could probably better characterize it as “marching”).

The story features decent writing and a very strong consistency of character—all of the delusional loyalty to Adolf Hitler is entirely believable, as much as the revolutionary conspiracy’s urgent belief that his death is the only thing that can be done to preserve their homeland. There are many characters involved and a lot of conversation for those who enjoy such things. Nice touches such as the requisite “Heil Hitler!” preceding each interaction and references to other real-life landmark war events abound. The game even provides the simple but nifty option of playing in 1940s-style black-and-white in what’s called the “documentary” option.

Unfortunately, all of this welcome authenticity is unwound in a ghastly way by the dreadful voiceovers. Bad acting is one thing, and it is plentiful, with characters clearly having no motivation despite their words, no urgency despite their treacherous plans, and in some cases no idea what the line just spoken to them actually was. More unforgivable is the bizarre lack of polish for a game that in other areas appears intent on historical accuracy. There are some great German accents, some boring American ones, some odd British ones, even the occasional German Frenchman.

I suppose that can all be overcome, but try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the incessant butchery of German names and phrases. I cannot comprehend why the lead actor could not make up his mind how to pronounce the name “Goebbels”—not only did he frequently switch between two options, both of them are wrong. Call me sensitive (I am 50% German, after all) but this is a dialect that calls unnecessary attention to itself when words are consistently mispronounced in an inconsistent way, and it’s hard to be emotionally invested in a plot to kill Hitler when I’m more incited to murder the man in front of me who can’t properly pronounce his own name. Maybe this was not an issue in the original Russian version—by all means, if you are playing the English version of this game, turn off the distractingly bad voice acting.

You can comfortably turn off the music as well, as there is little here to really supplement the mood. There are odd military-flavored flourishes of what you could appropriately describe as “battle music” and then a lot of silence. The developer’s art budget was obviously just as low. The game is not bad-looking but has very low ambition, with no animated cutscenes (some of the intense moments are not adequately served by the simple black-and-white slideshow drawings that serve to bridge major sections) and a pretty low level of detail in most of the backgrounds. The locations themselves don’t compensate for the lack of creativity; other than an airfield sequence and the castle exterior, most backgrounds are drab indoor locations such as a house, an office building, an apartment, and a restaurant.

The game ends relatively quickly; my play time was about 8 hours but I would describe this as a 5-6 hour game if you’re lucky/smart enough to avoid a lot of the unnecessary walking around, and if you can quickly get past the abysmal and completely broken Texas Hold-‘Em sequence (which is programmed so terribly, I can’t imagine why the designers thought it was worth including—poker enthusiasts, prepare to be aggravated). Obstacles largely involve very simple inventory usage, with just a few item combinations. There are also some simple exhaust-the-dialogue puzzles; playing the words of some soldiers against others will be a key element, so expect a lot of dialogue. Nothing is particularly difficult, as clues abound for every puzzle in both your journal and other conversations.

The game ends sooner than I was happy with; given the dramatic build of the final chapter, a bit more interaction related to the final sequence would have been a lot more immersive than the sudden ending provided. This contributes to the overall feeling that A Stroke of Fate: Operation Valkyrie is exactly what it is: about half of a game. It’s got pretty good writing, a decent aptitude for historical authenticity, and entirely okay art design, but it’s wrapped up in a very bland package that lacks ambition, depth, length, and a single moment of tolerable voice acting. I want to play the sequel because I am interested in the history of this era—not because this is a great adventure game. If you don’t align with me in the former category, and have never found historical adventures to be enjoyable, this will likely not be the adventure to change your mind.

Our Verdict:

As the first of two parts, Operation Valkyrie is recommended (with the sound off) for World War II history enthusiasts only, and even then you may want to wait for the sequel’s release.

GAME INFO A Stroke of Fate: Operation Valkyrie is an adventure game by SPLine released in 2011 for PC. It has a Illustrated realism style and is played in a Third-Person perspective.

The Good:

  • Great attention to historic WWII detail, fairly well-written with a good blend of fact and fiction
  • Never a frustrating difficulty level

The Bad:

  • Abysmal English voiceovers rife with bad acting and mispronunciations
  • A little too short and simple considering the weight of the story
  • No real artistic ambition

The Good:

  • Great attention to historic WWII detail, fairly well-written with a good blend of fact and fiction
  • Never a frustrating difficulty level

The Bad:

  • Abysmal English voiceovers rife with bad acting and mispronunciations
  • A little too short and simple considering the weight of the story
  • No real artistic ambition
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