Review: Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty (360)

There is no introductory paragraph required for this review. No, straight out in the open, this is the worst FPS that has ever had the misfortune to be produced for the current generation of consoles. What is even more disparaging is that the concept behind it is rather interesting. Set in an alternative history timeline where Winston Churchill was killed in 1931, thereby depriving the UK of his leadership in World War II and having the Nazis completely defeat the country relatively easily. Fast forward to 1953 and the Germans have become bold enough to launch a full on air invasion of the US, assaulting it with terrible A.I., mediocre weapons, and horrible graphics.

Turning Point has few redeeming qualities, so Gamestyle might as well list them straight away. The soundtrack is very well put together, made up of an orchestral score that is pleasant to listen to. The interesting concept also goes towards making the game an interesting buy. However the decent concept and great music feel completely wasted on this bug ridden mess.

One of the main gripes with the game is the terrible graphics. During an initial play, Gamestyle thought at first we may have actually purchased a first generation Playstation 2 game, due to the horrible block nature of anything that wasn’t already a cube. But it’s not just this that makes the game horrible, the bland, mostly grey textures are quite frankly an eyesore that also makes the game slightly more difficult than it should be. Considering most enemies wear black and dark greys in the game, sticking them in darkened corridors seems to be an attempt on the part of the developers to make encounters more of a challenge, as they blend into the shadows before blasting your head off with a machine gun from three feet away. This seems to be a conscious effort on the part of the developer, as the A.I. on display is no match for anybody with an I.Q. that doesn’t require them to physically remember to breathe. On several occasions the numb-skulled Nazis simply stand around watching as you approach, not reacting in any way what-so-ever until you’re within shotgun range. Although there was one literally surprising instance where, after backtracking to regenerate health, a couple of Nazis actually managed to give chase up a flight of stairs, something that never happened again in the entire game. The only real difficulty spikes arrive when you are assaulted by a half a dozen or more enemies hiding in the dark. And that's just the start of our critiscisms concering the graphics, as the dodgy frame rate and overly obtrusive grenade indicator also spring to mind, but this paragraph is long enough as it is.

The game features some noticeable flaws with the animation, not only with your foes, but also your controlled character, Carson. At certain points the camera switches to a third person view as you traverse ledges and other obstacles, and watching the animation problems here is just confounding. When doing a hand of hand motion, you literally see the animation pause then skip a couple frames. This would be forgivable if it just happened once or twice, but it happens every time and looks like the developers simple couldn’t be bothered to finish the animation where Carson puts his hand back on the pipe.

The controls for the game aren’t overly bad, but they’re hampered by the sedate pace. The normal walking speed is glacier slow and while there is a sprint button, it doesn’t really do much except get you an achievement for doing it for 30 minutes. Worse is the sensitivity, which on the default setting is too slow, and on the other two higher settings is too rapid to make aiming practical. Even worse still is that when moving backwards, Carson moves even slower than forwards, making seeking cover almost ineffectual. All of these problems continue in the online multiplayer, which is so bland and uninspiring there’s no need to mention it ever again.

The game also has multiple bugs that hamper the gameplay, the most alarming of which is when it freezes during loading, requiring a restart. The more common examples include enemies freezing in mid air after being killed, or the inept rag doll physics causing the corpses to have epileptic seizures rather than rigor mortis. Weapons get stuck in walls and doors when dropped by enemies, and most annoyingly of all, sometimes when you use Iron Sights aiming (think Call of Duty’s precision aiming mode); your gun refuses to fire, or come out of the mode once the Left Trigger is released.

In many ways Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is playable, but there’s so much unredeemable dross that you should seriously question why you purchased the game when every other FPS on the system is far more deserving of your money. If you must shoot Nazis on the Xbox 360, pick up Call of Duty 2 if you haven’t already. It’s cheap and you can use the rest of the money to get a handful of professional leaflets printed up warning people of the health hazards associated with purchasing Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. Hell, even A-Train HX offers more excitement.

Rating: 1 / 10

Words by Garry Webber