Turning Point: Fall of Liberty Xbox 360 Review

Though it does possess some talented individuals who previously worked on the Medal of Honor series, Spark Unlimited is nonetheless a relatively new development studio, and since people recognise developers by their games rather than their people, such an obviously cobbled together game as Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, isn’t going to have the vast majority of gamers anticipating the companies next title.

Turning Point is an alternate history World War II game, that asks what would have happened, if the car accident that very nearly cost (the then little know) Winston Churchill his life, had actually killed him. According to the game, Europe would have fallen to the Germans and their next target would have been America. It’s an interesting premise that perhaps doesn’t meet its full potential.

Turning Point’s thrown together feel strikes you right from entering the first level (or maybe as early as the company logos, such is their chuginess). Poorly, err..constructed constructer workers fall to their dooms, explosions are huge but not close to the detail you’d expect from this current crop of technologically advanced consoles, the framerate is rarely smooth, glitches and crash bugs are a common occurrence, and everything just looks sub PS2, which dampens the impact and spectacle of the games bigger set-pieces. All this ugliness from the technology that powered such visual delights as BioShock and Gears of War.

This sloppiness extends to the gameplay mechanics of Turning point, though thankfully not as awfully as the games struggling engine. Targeting is inconsistent, with bullets sometimes riddling bodies that your crosshair is clearly a fraction off, and at other times you’ll swear you’re aiming dead on at their noggins, only to find that you have to empty a full clip in to them before the game finally registers a hit, seriously infuriating. Once enemies do drop after taking one too many bullets, it’s rather anti climatic as they fall down like a German sack of Potatoes, as opposed to the fancy action movie esque pirouetting and contorting, that the bodies of goons in many other games go through before finally giving up their ghosts.

If you’re looking for a refreshing FPS, Turning Point is hardly going to be the game for you, as largely it’s a seen it all before affair that involves killing people and blowing things up, which is no bad thing in itself, but has been executed more proficiently in many other games. See the recently reviewed Conflict: Denied Ops for just one example.

To be fair though, the grappling system is at the very least a moderately unique facet of the game and perhaps a more satisfying method of taking down the enemies than the more conventional guns are, mostly because it involves whacking them across the skull with your guns, kneeing them in the ribs, bashing their heads into TV’s or sticking them down toilets, all of which are fancier virtual ways to die than just pathetically falling down like a sack of potatoes is.

Turning Point isn’t completely without its merits, but the games engine could have done with a bit more hammering and nails to make its shaky foundations more robust. Quite frankly to buy such buggy games as this, would be a terrible disservice to the games industry, so quite simply don’t.

4/10