Game-spectrum

Written by Chris Matel
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
What-if scenarios: such hypothetical utterances can invoke a great amount of imagination and contemplation. There are many instances throughout history where ‘what if’ might entail disastrous implications. Thus is the premise of Spark Unlimited’s Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. In an alternate history, Turning Point takes the World War II shooter out of Europe and puts it on American territory. Unfortunately, while the premise is intriguing, the actual gameplay is anything but.

Imagine, if you will, you’re working on the New York skyline in the 1950s when all of a sudden the infrastructure around you begins to be bombarded by a Nazi invasion—and you thought it was just another day on the job. This is the scenario where Turning Point picks up; you’re Dan Carson and your day has just been ruined by Nazi dirigibles. Instead of cowering like the rest of society at the Luftwaffe and SS army, you join up with a mobilizing militia to repel the invasion by assassinating a Nazi-loving president, and traveling to London to destroy a doomsday weapon, the Atom bomb.

Turning Point is one of those games where the what-if scenario is supposed to invoke an enjoyable, alternate-history experience; however, the ‘what if’ part should also be extended to the gameplay itself, as in: what if it worked well?

Divided into three chapters, Turning Point bounds across three different locales: New York, Washington D.C. and London. There was a massive amount of speculation regarding the condition of the game following the demo release, and little has been done to quell any such apprehension; everything feels unpolished, glitchy and lacking.

While the story serves as an interesting context for which the game is set, there’s little-to-no elaboration or character development—you barely even know who you are aside from a construction worker turned army-of-one. Each level is mapped out as a linear path with no alternative derivations and nothing extra to explore (leaving little reason replay once completed), and all of the A.I. is scripted the same for both versions of the game. Included in mission objectives are times where you have to plant a bomb by playing a mini-game, connecting wires and flipping switches, but it’s just unnecessary. Also, there are no boss battles or challenging, interesting enemies, except for a minor gunfight with the President.

The A.I. in general leaves you wondering how the Nazis were able to conquer the entirety of Europe and Africa, and how your group was able to mobilize to form a resistance. There isn’t dynamic enemy strategy to keep fights interesting, as enemies run into the open and will either kill you in a few shots or barely notice where you are. On your side of the fight, your companions will sit in once place, and fail to help you in any effective way.

Only maddening the experience are unpolished oddities which make the game feel like it was shoved out of the door. While looking around has a delayed-reaction feeling in general, different weapons have different aiming speeds. Also, technical bugs like being able to kill clipping enemies through doors and massive amounts of framerate slowdown plague both versions of the game. Other annoying features include numerous loading points in-mission that stop any fluidity, and an inconvenient checkpoint system that will have you replaying a big chunk of a section if you happen to die.

Another weird discrepancy is the difference in strength between your enemies and you. The game works on a regenerative health system whereby the screen fades to black and white as you’re injured, but loses any sort of reality as the enemy can be killed with a single shot to the toe. Similarly, when throwing grenades, even though you’re a construction worker, you can’t seem to lob them for any useful distances; while your Nazi enemy can effectively throw grenades wherever they want.

Although the developers said they addressed graphical issues between the demo release and the finished product, Fall of Liberty still looks less than passable for the current-gen. There is an absurd amount of pop-in for both textures and random objects, and the PS3 version is bugged with aliasing issues. Textures for levels are bland and do little to bring the environment to life, while the character models are simple with slight variations between them. If you’re in New York, and there are citizens around, where’s the diversity? The game tries to invoke a sense of chaos but falls flat with limited animations (a medic looks to be trying to shake his patient alive) and only a handful of differently clothed people, nearly all Caucasian.

Particles and other effects also feel rough. Flames and explosions look like they’re out of the old Area 51 arcade game, while smoke has little depth to it. Other general graphical issues include little environmental interaction and damage, vehicles which look like cardboard cutouts with wheels, and, if this is a shooter, where’s the blood?

The big problem arises as Turning Point is still another WWII shooter. Yes, it’s an alternate history, but you’re still shooting Nazis with your usual M1 Garand and Thompson guns. The game tries to mix things up by replacing melee attacks with a Grapple feature, but it too is buggy. Instead of punching out enemies or smacking them with your weapon, you can run up to them, grab them and either use them as a shield, instantly kill them, or perform an environmental kill. Unfortunately, all the environmental kills are scripted to only a few specific enemies, and just trying to grab them works inconsistently.

At least if you managed to struggle through a boring campaign mode, there should be a decent online game, but Turning Point fails to deliver once again. With what feels like an afterthought, implemented right before release, online games are divvied up between Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch games, with only a handful of maps. However, if you manage to find a game online, the same poor gameplay extends over the internet. Nothing indicates if you’re hurting your opponent or missing them completely, and with all of the characters looking too similar, you’re bound to rack up a good number of team kills.

Ultimately, there’s little to find exciting in Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. Between bland environments, boring and broken gameplay, poor graphics and lame audio content, and a soundtrack that doesn’t seem to fit with what you’re doing in-game, the alternate-history shooter is a failed attempt at an intriguing plot. Not many are online for either version of the game, and there’s no reason to replay the campaign if you’ve done it once. Ironically however, for a game with such sub-par gameplay, it does have one of the more interesting ending cutscene.

Gameplay: 4.0
Graphics: 5.0
Audio: 6.0
Lasting Appeal: 3.0
Overall: 4.5