Turning Point Fall of Liberty Review

BY Soheil Sadeghi | POSTED: 26 June 2008

Turn away!



We have gone through many of the campaigns from the world wars in the gaming world. We are standing on the point to proudly say: We have been there, we have seen it all. But in this same exact point comes Turning point: Fall of liberty. So we have to turn. The game tells an alternate history to the WWII when Winston Churchill the Mastermind behind the success of the Allies dies in a car accident in the United States in 1931 and this results in the victory of German Nazis in the upcoming WWII. So the Germans conquer the Europe, Africa and many regions of Asia while the Americans are left safe and sound in their country without any intention to get themselves caught in the world affairs. But this sweet dream does not last long and the Germans invade the east coast of the United States in 1953.

The game puts you in the role of a construction worker in New York City. You are doing your job when out of nowhere Big Zeppelins come appear on the horizon and hundreds of small planes start bombarding the city. How all of these crafts came into the country unnoticed is unclear and our guy suddenly finds himself in the middle of a war and in the course of the game he transfers from an everyday construction worker to a fierce resistance fighter. We have seen alternate World War histories in other games too; most noticeable of them all in the major successful hit: Resistance Fall of Man which told the story of the war being changed due to an alien invasion. But here we have a story introducing a new approach not seen in the previous games based on the Second World War and this is the only edge it has against the other games. But this edge is not sharp enough to cut a bigger piece out of the competition and it stops there.

Story aside, every other part lacks the quality of a good game. The graphics is on par with the best games of the previous generation. The models are poor, level designs horrible and so many glitches here and there. The game gradually teaches you the basic principles before putting you in the real action. The action mainly consists of shooting Germans. While there are some improved weapons than what we saw in the WWII, the aiming and shooting is also a pain which you should deal with at least if you wrongfully plan to play the game. The Germans look advanced but they have forgotten the simple basic rule of soldier recruiting: The eye test. It seems that the enemy soldiers all need glasses because in the most parts if you stand in front of them it takes a long time till they finally recognize you as one of their enemies. The efforts done by the sound technicians are no better than the graphic department and completely passable. The only little thing that shines through all this mess is some good placed set-pieces but they are scarce and few and also they are not considered as a main element to make the game playable by today's standards.

Turning Point offers some Multiplayer action too. The modes are straight-forward single and team deathmatches. The multiplayer levels are also hurt from the bad designs and overall you even will not want to play this game with your friends over the network, and if you insist of playing it online with others, you should wait a long time to find a match with enough gamers ready to play.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is a game which its developers have made one big mistake: ruining a potential good story. In this era of first-person shooters' popularity, releasing a game with this quality only brings one conclusion in the mind and that is earning the easy money and this is so sad considering the previous effort of Spark Unlimited Company which was a good Call of Duty game(COD: Finest Hour on Original Xbox/PS2/GameCube). This title is by no means the one to buy and by no means the one to even rent. The game's tagline is turning point and that is exactly what you have to do:  turning away from it.