Putting aside the underwhelming feeling the pre-release demo left me with, I had such high hopes for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty<\/em><\/a>. The WWII branch of the FPS genre has been growing increasingly stale over the past few years and Turning Point\u2019s unique, alternate-history narrative premise, a storyline in which Winston Churchill is killed while on a trip to New York and Hitler\u2019s German war machine is left unimpeded to seize control of Europe and invade the US, really had me believing that the game would deliver a refreshing FPS experience. Unfortunately, that just didn\u2019t happen and my hopes were crushed in the process.<\/p>\n

I guess my main beef with Turning Point<\/em> is that the cool story that sounded so intriguing on paper actually turned out very dull and uninspired. In the game you play as Dan Carson, a construction worker who is up on the high steel when the Nazi forces waylay New York City and pretty much by accident becomes a freedom fighter in the US resistance against the invasion. The problem is that it doesn\u2019t seem like any effort was put into developing Carson as a heroic figure you feel any sort of emotional investment in playing. He\u2019s essentially a nameless, faceless protagonist with no backstory or character development. And the storyline is equally thin and forgettable. You simply run and gun through a series of missions — totaling no more than 4-6 hours, by the way — with a cut scene of little significance sprinkled in along the way.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My other disappointment stems from the overall gameplay design. Spark Unlimited, a studio founded by former developers responsible for the hit Medal of Honor<\/em> franchise, has proven great know-how in making WWII shooters in the past, but for whatever reason the team just didn\u2019t push the envelope over what they\u2019ve done in previous works. Honestly, Turning Point<\/em> plays very much like one of first Medal of Honor<\/em> games, it\u2019s just that dated. The levels are linear, the enemy spawns are predictably scripted, the AI routines are rudimentary, and the shooting model is as run of the mill as it gets. I did think the third-person human shield and environmental\/melee quick-kill mechanics were pretty neat, though, but not neat enough to rescue the rest of the game from its overall generic ways.<\/p>\n

The presentation is painfully dated, too. Aside from a sweeping, beautifully composed musical score and some interesting weapon designs, everything else falls flat. Textures are bland, the environmental geometry is basic, particle effects for explosions and smoke look very glitchy, the animations (especially during third-person actions like climbing ladders and shimming across ledges) are laughably rigid, and worst of all the frame rate is extremely unsteady (at least in the PS3 version I played). So many of the set pieces that were meant to be so epic and memorable, like the opening sequence of NYC being invaded and the continued stages through the city streets seeing notable landmarks and buildings in rubble, simply don\u2019t resonate as intended because the graphical quality isn\u2019t up to snuff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So yeah, there you have it. For all its promises to not be just another generic WWII FPS, that\u2019s exactly what Turning Point: Fall of Liberty<\/em> has ultimately turned out to be. Even the multiplayer was half-assed. I mean come on, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch with four maps and that\u2019s it, what the hell is that all about!?<\/p>\n

Unless you simply must have another FPS to play, I\u2019d say save your time and money for more fulfilling games.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/strong>
\n+ Great musical score
\n+ Human shield and melee mechanics are pretty cool<\/p>\n

Cons:<\/strong>
\n– Storyline falls completely flat despite its compelling premise
\n– Archaic game design – it’s just another WWII FPS
\n– This game runs on Unreal Engine 3!? I sure as hell don’t see it…
\n– Weak, tacked-on multiplayer mode is an embarrassment<\/p>\n

Game Info:<\/strong>
\nPlatform: Reviewed on PS3, also available for PC and Xbox 360
\nPublisher: Codemasters
\nDeveloper: Spark Unlimited
\nRelease Date: 2\/26\/08
\nGenre: FPS
\nPlayers: 1-8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putting aside the underwhelming feeling the pre-release demo left me with, I had such high hopes for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. The WWII branch of the FPS genre has been growing increasingly stale over the past few years and Turning Point\u2019s unique, alternate-history narrative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[211,23,49,3,330,21],"tags":[6155,6081,696,699,6208,6079],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}