Customer Reviews

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I usually wait until there are a few reviews out for a game before I buy it, but I was so intrigued by the concept of Turning Point: Fall of Liberty that I thought I would take a chance. Having just come off great games like Call of Duty 4, Assassin's creed, Bioshock, Mass Effect (you get the idea..) ... I was fairly disappointed by how unintuitive the controls of this game are. They aren't the worst, by far, but certainly felt sloppy in light of other better games I have recently played. The control sensitivity is too low on "medium" and felt much better on "high" except when I went to aim with "Iron Sights" then medium was better, constantly changing got annoying though, so I decided to melee exclusively (see below) Moreover, the graphics are cartoony, the checkpoints are few and far between, and the weapons... this takes me into a second paragraph.

Combat: Explain this to me: Nazi bad guy with sub machine gun is perfectly accurate at 1000ft. I manage to take him down with the only good weapon in the game (bolt action rifle) and when I get his machine gun, I can't hit a guy 30ft away. I don't get that. Regardless other than rifles, the weapons aren't even worth it. I found myself running up to guys for melee combat instead of wasting my time shooting them. Of course, I have to wait for the enemy to finish whatever animation he is in before the melee prompt appears, but it was far more effective than shooting. I found myself quite irritated by the combat.

Other things that annoy me are the dumbing down of vehicles battles. Enemy tank, no problem there is a rocket launcher conveniently stowed around the corner. Boat? Ohh... another rocket launcher... blimp? Same. I did not come across one combat encounter with an enemy vehicle that didn't either drive off in a hurry, or didn't blow up with a couple well aimed rockets. It was all very formulaic. To wrap it up, the game sacrificed game play for story, and is overall at best a 3 star game.

Edit 3/2/08: There weren't many multi-player games going on, but I managed to play a few. What I found was, the levels were boring. You get to pick your weapon each time you spawn, but they are as bad in multi-player as they are in the single player campaign. Except that the other players can't use them effectively either. Stick with Call of Duty Multi-player which is a lot of fun.

Alternate histories have been quite popular for many years. We've seen it in movies, on television, in comics, and of course, in books.

Eric Flint is quite adept at spinning tales of Alternate Histories, and anyone who enjoys this type of genre would be hard pressed to find a better writer.

So, it's only natural to see alternate histories eventually make their way to the gaming platform.

That's the idea behind Turning Point: The fall of liberty. It's a game that speculates - what would have happened during World War two if Winston Churchill would have been killed instead of crippled in that accident?

Well, the game lets us know. The 3rd Reich would have won the war.

The game begins with the German war machine invading New York City. You take the role of Dan Carson, just an average Joe trying to earn a living in the city as a construction worker.

As fate would have it, Dan ends up becoming a resistance fighter in the war to throw the Nazi's off American soil.

Hey, the game sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? I know after I watched the trailer for the game I was quite eager to pick it up and give it a whirl.

Sadly, the best I can say about the game is that it is, at best, an average offering. Which is a pity. The story has so much potential, and it could have been a really great game.

It is divided up into three major chapters. The first chapter takes place in New York City itself, where Dan has to fight his way out of the city, past the occupying German forces so that he can lend his fighting skills to the militia.

The second Chapter involves Dan and the militia assaulting Washington DC. I can't really say too much about this without giving away some of the really cool points to the game.

The third and final chapter involves Dan and the militia heading to German occupied London in order to destroy a nuclear weapon that is destined to be used on New York City itself.

Oh, there is a great deal more to the game than what I just stated. I pointed those out as more of a teaser than anything...

I was quite pleased with two parts of the game. One took place in Washington, and the ending itself. Again, I won't say what these things were, as I don't want to spoil it. But if you want to know, just look it up on the net. It won't be difficult to find.

Now, down to the game play itself. It is the typical Xbox 360 first person shooter. I've brought this up in several of the other reviews I've written about Xbox games, so what I'm about to say isn't new or ground shaking.

You don't have a health meter. Instead as you take damage, the screen turns grey, your vision blurs and the worse it gets, the closer you are to dying. If that happens, make sure that you find cover fast so that you can regenerate.

You can only carry two weapons at any time through the game, so choose wisely. Generally try to carry a close combat weapon (such as a sub machine gun or shotgun), and a long range weapon (sniper rifle or regular rifle).

Getting replacement weapons and ammo is quite easy. Kill your enemy and take his! Oh, and make good use of your grenades. If you see a room, and you know that there are enemy soldiers in it, toss one in and step aside and let it do all the hard work for you.

Like the Call of Duty line, if the enemy throws a grenade at you, an indicator appears on your screen, so move away from it or you're dead meat.

One thing I kind of enjoyed was the hand to hand combat. If you got close enough to your enemy, you could choose to grapple with him. If you had a lot of enemy targets around you, the poor sap you grappled would end up acting like a bullet sponge, saving your life as you killed his compatriots.

There were several different graphics available that played through when you grappled, showing different ways you could kill your enemy. There were even parts of the game you could use the surrounding environments to help you in dispatching the poor soul.

Again, as with some of the games like the Call of Duty series, you occasionally had to plant bombs on targets to meet objectives. I guess some people might have found it neat, but I found it a little cumbersome. When placing the explosives on a target or object, you would have to hit the appropriate coloured button representing a wire, and then twist one of the joystick controllers in order to lock the wire in place. Time consuming and pointless to me, but others might enjoy it.

The graphics for the soldiers are just average. All the Nazi soldiers look pretty much alike, with there being only four (that I can remember) models. Most of the maps were average looking; with the only thing really sticking out for me was the destruction that was rendered across New York City by the invasion. That was very well done, but otherwise, the maps and surroundings were pretty much standard fare.

The game utilizes the Unreal 3.0 engine and somehow it really does seem under-utilized to me. There were times that the soldiers seemed to get stuck in the walls, other times when they died it seemed very un-natural to me, unlike some of the other games I've played that had beautifully rendered rag doll effects.

Nothing about the soundtrack to the game really stuck out in my mind, so again, it was pretty much just your average game music. It's not something that I would have gone out to pick up if I could find it, or like the soundtrack that you could get if you purchased the collectors edition. Although, there are those who would disagree with that statement. Just check out other reviews.

As is the case with many Xbox games, the time playing was rather short. Even with having to reload several times after getting my rear handed to me in some of the larger maps, it still took me only about six hours to complete the game.

That is the biggest complaint I have about these games, and I've said it before. Purchasing a game that costs about $60 and playing it for only about six or so hours makes me feel that I most certainly am not getting my money's worth.

Yes, the game does come with a multiplayer mode, but again, as I've stated before, I'm not into multiplayer games. That feature is pretty much lost on me. I didn't bother trying it with this game either, as if I really wanted to play multiplayer, I would go and get my butt kicked again in Call of Duty 4.

Consider this... if the single player game is, at best, mediocre, do you expect that the multiplayer version would be any better? I personally would have to say no.

For those of you who love to gain achievements while playing the Xbox 360, there are 39 to be had in the game. I managed to unlock 21 for a score of 450 out of 1000, while I played it but that's the limit for me.

On a final note, it was kind of neat to see weapons that were probably just on the drawing board near the end of the second world war when the Nazi's lost. They were designed and brought into play for the game, and that was a logical, but nice touch.

Pro's
- Intriguing storyline.
- A few neat speculative weapons and aircraft.
- The ending was well done, and totally unexpected.
- One aspect of the Washington chapter.

Con's
- Too short.
- Clunky graphics at times.
- Uninspired enemy units.
- Some frustration factor in the larger maps.

Overall, I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5. Not bad, but not really memorable.

Recently one of those brick and mortar shops had a sale on Turning Point where I purchased it for $10.

What a waste of $10. I'd have been better served buying anything else. Maybe a CD with 1 song I want to hear. I'd have certainly had more fun with that.

Hit detection is extremely poor in this game. When I shoot an enemy 20 times and they are still sitting there shooting at me, I get annoyed. There are also spots where you can clearly see an enemy in the distance but, despite aiming at his head and pulling the trigger on his head, he won't die, simply because the game hasn't decided this character is "active." As soon as the enemy is active, THEN you can kill them. Annoying.

Why does the game need to be so DARK? I had to turn gamma correction up all the way in the video options in order to be able to see many of the enemies.

One thing I can't stand in a game is when enemies "pop" into the game. I understand wanting to keep the 360 working on other tasks to give me a tight frame rate and split second controller response, but WHY do I need to suspend my disbelief enough to allow enemies to POP UP RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!? I shouldn't have to disconnect myself from the action to accept pop up as this then destroys any immersion you might have in the game. And how about having enemies appear behind me when they clearly had no ingress into the area behind me? Perfect example. The most annoying section of the game, running the catwalk onto the blimp, you have come up an elevator to the catwalk. When you leave the elevator (which you can't go back down), there are several rooms to clear. I went into every room, killed every enemy and then ran down the catwalk. At about the 3/4 mark of the catwalk, I have enemies pop up BEHIND me, when clearly they can't be there if you look at the environment. I've watched them pop in.

Let us now look at the "use" function when it comes to certain items in the environment. Sometimes you have to pull a lever or open a door. For whatever reason, the programmers have decided on very narrow or very broad hit detection for this. Some doors you can open from yards away. Some levers you have to have the lever just to the left of your character to pull. Then there is the close combat actions. Sometimes you will run up on an enemy and the hand icon appears. Sometimes you'll be on the same spot of another enemy and instead of the hand appearing, you're filled with lead as you try to find the .00000001 centimeter area the programmers decided you need to hit this one enemy on. Consistency is the key and unfortunately this game fails miserably there.

The game is not fun. At all. It is tedious and boring.

Another way the programmers have decided to make the game difficult is to change the accuracy and the damage enemies do as you progress further into the game. This is fine, if it didn't also mean it took only 3 shots to have you meeting your maker on the later levels, where everyone seems to have a gun capable of shooting off 100 rounds a second.

The only other way they could figure out how to make the game difficult is to add the above accuracy and damage, then also make the areas between check points longer and longer the further you get into the game. And some of the areas are controller throwing anger inducing that you'll spend hours replaying because, despite the fact that the areas are tough as nails and you can easily make your way through them after all the repeat runs, there's always an unexpected enemy popping up just before a check point that will shoot you three times with a 100 bullet per second gun and you die.

If you're looking for ~500 "easy" (assuming you are good at the game and can stomach it long enough to play through) gamer points, this is a good title to pick up (for $10; any more than this and you're being ripped off). And the 500 can be achieved without playing on-line.

The concept behind the game intrigued me as it has others. Unfortunately the throw away any interest in this when it turns into a simple, poorly done first person shooter with little to no story and nothing really keeping the action cohesive.

So is this the worst game ever? No. There are moments of fun to be had. Is it the worst game I've played in a long time? Yes. Usually my good/bad game radar is pretty good. My "bad" radar was blipping when I picked this up, but the $10 price point muted any protestation my radar may have had. Every once in awhile I need to have a kick in the pants to remind me not to ignore the radar.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty reminded me on many levels of the venerable Xbox title Freedom Fighters. At least, it reminded me of it while I was reading the box at Gamestop.

Freedom Fighters was an excellent game. I still play it now and then when I hook up my Xbox. Turning Point, unfortunately, is not an excellent game.

It does get points for being generally fun to play. Not amazing to play, but fun. Shooting Nazis never does get old. This is a rental game, I'd say. If you rent it for a couple of days, you'll have just enough fun to justify the five or so bucks you spent. If you pay full price, on the other hand, prepare yourself for severe Buyer's Remorse pangs.

My first warning that I was getting a half-baked product was in the opening video. It was stiff, disjointed, lacked any music, and seemed to cut itself off in mid-stride. Worse, it failed to do anything more than serve as a 30-second exposition. "Nazis are invading. Oh, the humanity! New York is under attack!" That's about it.

There is no real story. Well, there is, but you never feel invested in it. The lackluster, half-hearted videos between levels that are supposed to drive the story onward serve as little more than fluffy filler, lacking pretty much any sense of timing and drama. Apparently, you're a regular Joe named Carson, who is a high-rise riveter in New York.

Wait, just a second. I have to interject something. What is it about games, movies, and books all being set in New York? And why do we have to see the same landmarks every time? Are there no other cities on the East Coast where we could set a game? C'mon, throw in Boston or Baltimore or something. Anything. I'm sick to death of New York city being the setting of 90% of games set in contemporary times.

Ok, now we can get back on track. The setup goes like this: as this is an alternate timeline, Winston Churchill did not survive to lead England during WWII. Britain falls, and the Axis is victorious in Europe. Now, a few years later (they never say, but it couldn't be later than 1946 or 47. That's actually a pretty decent setting--lots of potential. Lots and lots of wasted potential, actually. So you're Carson, a regular civilian, and you're fighting for your life against the Nazi invaders, who are falling like snowflakes out of the sky all over New York.

The first level scored points with me because of its frenetic pace and heart-pumping explosions. Then I got my first weapon--the MP50 (an upgraded MP40) and went to work. Once I hit combat the negatives in this game really started to stick out.

To keep things simple, here's a nice bullet list of the things that frustrated me about the title:

--Apparently, helmets want nothing to do with corpses. Shoot an enemy in the leg, and his helmet will take off and fly across the room. This happens to every enemy with a helmet. (Admittedly, it's handy to know when they're really dead, and not just crouching, but it's a head-scratcher.) Why do the helmets spontaneously animate?
--The enemies will be in the same place every time you play through, so mastery of this game is little more than trial and error, learning where the big threats are. I had thought we'd moved past this kind of predictability.
--For a while I thought some Nazis hated each other, because they would shoot at one another. Then I realized that they weren't. They were all shooting at me, but for some reason some Nazis stand facing away from me while attacking. Others fire their rifles off into the sky for no apparent reason. These bullets DO hit you, somehow, no matter where the enemy seems to be aiming. They must be magical.
--Sometimes enemies will be standing right next to a grenade you've thrown and not die when it explodes.
--Nazis "appear." For instance, you can clear a room, move on to the next one, clear it, and--BOOM, you're dead. How? Well, a Nazi materialized in the room you'd just left and shot you in the back with a combat shotgun. Where did he come from? No one knows. Maybe through a vent in the ceiling or something.
--Bodies vanish. This is something else I thought we had moved past.
--Despite "being a member of the Resistance," as the game tells you, it would be far more accurate to say that YOU ARE THE RESISTANCE. Your allies do show up from time to time, but they are always waxed in short order and you're back to a solo show. They don't do much in the way of help, anyway. It's pretty much all on you.
--Carson, the main character, wears his construction clothes throughout the entire campaign. What, he couldn't find anything more appropriate for combat than jeans and a bright orange shirt that practically screams "HERE I AM SHOOT ME NOW."
--Oh, and Carson's weapons are so high-tech that they become invisible when you climb a ladder or inch across a ledge. (I'm not sure what the practical use of an invisible rifle is, but...meh.) You might be carrying a Panzerschlag and a Fallschirmjaeger carbine, but they just aren't there. Would it have been too hard to show the weapons slung on his back, or something? Of course, the second you complete the climb, the weapons reappear.
--There are serious clipping errors. Enemies will fire through vehicles in certain places and hit you. If you return fire, it will ricochet. It's a one-way deal, and you're on the butt-end of it.
--The HUD tells you which direction you're being attacked from. Or at least that's what it is supposed to do. The most recent example--still fresh in my mind--is when a Nazi fired a rocket at me. It passed by me on the right, hit a wall, and my HUD flashed red--telling me that I was being attacked from the left. So I spun left. No one there. Another rocket comes into the hallway. Now I'm being attacked from straight ahead, even though I'm looking down a completely empty hallway. Most of the time the HUD gets it right, but every so often...beware! BEWARE!
--Sometimes you'll find crates of grenades--a blessed relief, since you (in this example) don't have any left. So you walk over to get them and...well...you can't. It just doesn't let you pick them up. But the next time you come through that level, try it again. Sometimes it'll let you take them. Sometimes it won't. I have no idea how it decides whether or not to hand 'em over.
--Similarly, sometimes enemies, when killed, will drop their weapons half-under a table or something. When this happens, they're out of reach--even if you're standing on half the weapon, you can't get the ammo from it. In parts of the game where ammo is scarce, this can lead to your premature death.
--Only a bare amount of effort was put into some of these encounters and animations. Example: you come across a Nazi during his daily constitutional (i.e., a nice satisfying dump). What does he do? He looks up, surprised, and raises his arms to surrender. Normally at this point I'd just kill him, but on my second time through, I wanted to see what he would do if I just stared at him. Turns out, he just repeats that same animation over and over. Looks down. Looks up. Surprised. Hands up. Looks down. Looks up. Surprised. Hands up. And so on. This particular Nazi either has the attention span of a goldfish, or the developers were too lazy to come up with anything better than a six-second looping animation. (I'm guessing the latter.)

AND FINALLY

--This bullet point must be stressed, hence its separation from the list. The MP-50. What. The. Heck. Is the matter with it? 90% of the time, it works just fine. Other times, though, I'll step out into a hall, aim, and...nothing. It just doesn't fire. But that's not all. No. When this happens, the game also locks you into the MP-50 so you cannot switch weapons, you cannot reload, you cannot even get out of aiming mode. The one "cure" seems to be to throw a grenade, if you have one. I've been killed several dozen times because my MP-50 randomly decided to lock up and refuse to function. This happens often enough--about 1 in 10 aims--that you really come to hate the MP-50 and will refuse to use it. This problem--locking in the aim and locking the controls up--only ever seems to happen with the MP-50. It's never happened with another weapon. This is a very prominent bug as the MP-50 is probably the most common weapon in the game. It's the kind of easily noticeable glitch that only a half-baked attempt at a game would allow to stand. It's also the most frustrating out of any of the things I've listed, because it basically reduces you to a walking target (you can't sprint while aiming) until you manage to shake it loose by pushing every button on your controller randomly. The MP-50 will also occasionally lock up even when you're firing from the hip (not in aiming mode, in other words.) It's not as bad when this happens, because the weapon will do this up-down hiccup animation, and then be able to fire again. Still annoying, though.

Finally, though this game's settings and storyline are rather epic, the entire presentation feels flat and lifeless. There is no investment in the story. There's barely a story. And some of it I just don't understand.

If you found out that Germans were building an A-Bomb in London and you knew where in London their lab was, but you're in America, what do you do? Well, if it were me I'd get on whatever means of commo I had to tell the Brits what I knew, so they could do something about.

Not in Turning Point. No. In this game, the fate of New York City (again with that f-ing town) rests on your shoulders. Carson. The construction worker. They have this guy parachuting in like he's qualified Airborne, sent in solo against a heavily armed German garrison in the Tower of London. It just doesn't make sense. What kind of a Resistance sends over ONE PLANE carrying ONE GUY who HAS NO MILITARY TRAINING to save the world? A really stupid Resistance, that's what.

I was hoping for a scene like Freedom Fighters had near the end--that dramatic, blood-pumping scene where the ships and fighters are advancing across the ice toward Governor's Island, and that amazing music is playing, and you truly feel like the leader of a Resistance. Dozens of your fellow Freedom Fighters assault alongside you, and you really feel like you're in a battle.

Instead I got one plane, and one guy parachuting in like he's freakin' John Rambo with a grudge. Remember, Carson is a construction worker. He's not Delta Force. But apparently, the Resistance, in their infinite wisdom, chose to send Carson over trained soldiers. There wasn't any drama to accompany this daring assault, either.

So, let's review. Utter lack of an interesting story (but an *outstanding* concept). With a bare amount of extra effort, they could have turned it into something amazing. Add some more voice actors. Write some scripts. Treat your gamers to 3-5 minute cutscenes where you get to know your fellow Freedom Fighters. Toss in extra background info to set up the next challenge and you'll have an epic story of Resistance vs. Nazis. C'est la vie.

Numerous game glitches like clipping errors and Head's Up Display screwups abound. Those grenades that land at an enemy's feet and don't kill him. MP-50s that lock up your entire controller and lead to your death many, many times. And so on. Those things. Yeah. I guess they just skipped that whole quality assurance portion of development. You know, where they work out the bugs? They must have just shelved that step.

Okay, I think I've about covered all of the things in Turning Point that bothered me and detracted from the overall experience.

But you might notice I rated it two stars, and not one. Why, you might ask, given that you just listed a million and one reasons why no one should play it?

Well, 'cause it's not a non-functional, broken game like Two Worlds or Neverwinter Nights 2. Those two were so bad on so many levels that they were quite literally unplayable. Turning Point is NOT among that drek. No, in fact, alongside those previously mentioned titles, Turning Point starts to seem like Call of Duty.

Let's face it. Shooting Nazis is fun, even if you're doing it in a glitchy, slow-paced predictable sub-par shooter. And the environmental kills are fun, too. Lots of fun. Imagine kicking a Nazi in his jewels, then shoving him into a furnace and shutting the door on him. Or--in another instance, kicking the jack out from under a truck a Nazi is working on, crushing him. See? Fun!

So it's not ALL bad. It's just MOSTLY bad.

The Bottom Line: If you like FPS, and/or hate Nazis, this is worth a two-night rental. My recommendation is *not* to purchase it. It's not worth more than the five or six bucks you pay out at the rental store.

Turning Point alters history by having the US stay out of Europe during the Nazi takeover in the 1940's. Now it's the early 50's and Hitler has set his sights on America. The game has some excellent graphics and cool post-modern designs throughout. Unfortunately the character animations, controls and weapon functions are already outdated by more recent shooters like Call Of Duty 4 and BioShock. Even Soldier Of Fortune: Payback has a better feel to it overall. The enemy soldiers fall down like they were shot on the moon. There is a slow motion/lack of gravity look to it all. The "imagined" modernized Nazi aircraft and weapons are interesting, but at times questionable (MP 50? Basically an MP40 with a wooden stock and mounted flashlight. Huh?). It's almost as if the designers were going for a BioShock vibe with the art deco look of New York, but the graphics are WAY below the beauty that is BioShock. It's a nice change from the normal WW2 games and for that reason alone, I give it 3 stars. You could do worse as far as shooters go, but you could also do a lot better. I would wait until it drops to 39.99 or below.

i bought this for my son who is a pre-teen and it wasnt too bad of a game i liked how there wasnt as much bad language as there is in most games nowadays and there is also a filter when you first start the game that lets u filter the language even more..the only reason i didnt give it 5 stars is because it got to hard for him and he quit..

this video game asks the question "what if the nazis invaded america?"there are a lot of very powerful images there,such as the white house draped in nazi flags.the story unfolds into a very intriging tale.i think this game will,in time,be known as the "bad boy" military game.it is now my favorite military game of all time,knocking shellshock nam off its pedestal.the guns they use are from the ww2 era.so you may not recognize some of them.however,they are not entirely different than youre standard shotgun,rifle and sniper gun most games offer.you are carson.hes just some dude who battles the invading nazis guierilla warfare style.there are basicly 3 parts.the first is defending and retaking new york,then dc and lastly london.the game is kind of short.that was really its only downfall.things like instant kill moves and drowning nazis in the toilet are just added fun to an already great game.some other cool things include setting charges,wiring bombs and human shields.the atmosphere can be disturbing to some.with the nazi flags all around and terminater like zeppelins.watching bombs fall all over new york could do it for some people too.however,i say the better word for it would be gripping.what they ought to do now is make one about guantanamo bay and the taliban and call it "americanized interrogation".so until that happens this is my pick for the greatest military game in history.

You play as Carson Daily....erm...I mean just Carson. He is a construction worker from New York during an alternate-early-50's era where the Nazis have conquered Europe and WW2 is still raging on. One day you're on some steel gerders and BOOM! The Nazis begin attacking the United States!! You regroup with...the National Guard? And its up to you and your Resistance group to stop the Nazi invasion.

You'll travel the east coast of the United States to repel the attack. You'll start off in a decent replica of New York (and at one point will see the Chrysler Building ripped in half and laying in the street), Washington D.C. to save some fictional resistance general from execution and the constitution from being burned (which is an achievement), in the New York subway system, and a few other areas. The environments look, for the most part, pretty good.

The action is pretty intense and you can do these grapple moves where you run up and either use the Nazi as a human shield for a little bit or you beat the bajesus out of them in different ways. However, Turning Point is a very buggy and glitchy game, so the icon to indicate you can grapple the people sometimes does not show up until you are on the verge of death. You can run up and press the B button numerous times until you actually do grab the person. You get a bunch of "modified" WW2 weapons such as the "new" MP50, Gewher 45 (theres a new "Vampir" version that has thermal vision for oyu to snipe with), the M1 Garand, the version of the Thompson with the drum on the bottom of the barrel, the "combat shotgun", a multi-barreled Panzershrek, and the potato masher hand grenades.

Again, this game is really glitchy. For instance theres this stage you go into near the end of the game...its a bridge. You walk out and theres enemies on EVERY side of you..they can actually hit you through the wholes in the bridge but you can't shoot them. Sometimes you'll go to aim down your iron sights, only to find you can't shoot or get out of the aim mode for a couple of seconds to a minute. Sometimes your grenades won't explode or sometimes an enemy can hit you from a mile away with the shotgun..a lot of time the game will freeze up, the frame rates will drop, and finally the sound will cut out sometimes.

The AI is pretty bad too. Sometimes you can run right into view and sit there for about 3-5 minutes before they take cover and start shooting. Its pretty embarrassing for CodeMasters to have released such a terrible AI system upon the world.

The music is pretty good though. Its mainly an orchestrated score to help you feel heart wretched or pumped up. Additionally, some power sets like the Chrysler building being destroyed will push any New Yorker (like me) over the edge and want to finish the game.

The ending was somewhat believable. You board this Nazi Zeppelin that has a nuke on it, and you must disarm it before it blows up (I think) New York. Anyway, you kill everyone on the aircraft and reach the nuke. You take one look and notice you have 10 seconds left, and you attempt to stop it. The whole time your commander is telling you good job and what not but your character does not know how to stop a nuclear device. So, he sits down, shakes his head, and the nuke blows up in the sky. Your a casualty of war, but you stopped the missle from actually being launched at a target.

Overall, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty could have been so much better if CodeMasters would have taken more time to work the bugs out and make the gun power more balanced. On a scale of 1-10, I give it a "rent it first" 5.5.

Turning point is an underrated, entertaining game that will keep your interest throughout the campaign. It has a very interesting story line...I think that's why I liked it so much. Not the best graphics, but good.

Overall, a very good game!

I enjoyed this game. True, it's not as amazing as Bioshock, but when I saw the planes flying across the bay into New York, it felt more personal than anything in Bioshock, Half-Life 2, or Halo (1, 2, or 3, take your pick).

Still, there were some problems. Using ladders is a pain, but ladders in FPS games are always annoying; at least in this game you don't have to worry about reaching the top and missing the landing. While I didn't have a problem with the weapons, it was a bit annoying that the Nazis can shoot their weapons with pinpoint accuracy while I have to struggle to shoot a guy across the corridor. The iron sight mode can obscure vision too...but both of these things just made the game more challenging. I can't shoot from my hip with 100% accuracy myself...why should I expect different from my avatar?

Multiplayer's kind of blah, but I don't think a game should be condemned because of multiplayer...I don't think it should be praised if multiplayer takes precedence over single player mode either (*cough* Halo *cough*).

Problems aside, the soundtrack is absolutely awesome, and the premise is an interesting one; the Nazi invasion of the United States. Maybe it's just me, but as long as the controls are okay and the graphics aren't just obscenely bad, I'll enjoy the game as long as the story's interesting.

In short, if you buy this game thinking it's gonna be like Call of Duty, you're going to be dissappointed...personally, I'm glad it's not. I've run up the beaches of Normandy more than I've flown a snowspeeder on the ice planet Hoth, and that's saying something.