Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (pc mini-review)

[Angry_Games]

Imagine this, if you will...

 

Winston Churchill is hit by a taxi in NYC in 1931. For the rest of his life he walked with a cane.

 

Now imagine instead: Winston Churchill dies from his injuries as a result of that accident. Britain is strong, but no leader like Churchill appears to save Europe from Nazi Germany.

 

The Allies eventually are defeated or driven back to America. Europe and most likely Africa falls to the Third Reich.

 

 

Fast forward to 1953. You are a steelworker in NYC, on the upper floors of a new high-rise going up when Nazi bombers begin their assault on NYC, and of course, America itself. It was only a about a decade after defeating Europe, and presumably the Soviets and African states that Nazi Germany's war machine needed to build up enough men and arms to make the final assault on the last remaining power, the United States of America. Once the USA is out of the way, world domination will essentially be complete as no nation left, even combining military strengths, will be able to defeat Hitler and his Werhmacht.

 

As the bombs begin falling, and the buildings on all sides of you are being firebombed from the sky, you have to escape and hopefully make it to safety so you can regroup and possibly get together with others or military units to try to push the Nazis out of America...

 

 

 

 

Ok, now, I don't know about you, but that alternative-history ., especially the speculation of "what if Hitler won the war?", is most intriguing. It makes for good fiction and if you think about it, it makes for DAMN GOOD gameplay plot.

 

Enter Turning Point: Fall of Liberty by Codemasters. Supposedly with some of the team that helped make Call of Duty? Haven't confirmed that part, thought I read it somewhere, but let's just for a second assume that it might be true...which we hope that it isn't and I'll tell you why:

 

There's no $#$#@ way any previous CoD guys would be caught DEAD with their names on this stinking bag of . called a videogame. Now some of you have seen it on Xbox 360, possibly even played it, and you might disagree. For the sake of topic, let's not get into that argument because I neither have it for Xbox360, nor have played, nor know anything about it. I'm only going to be talking about the PC version, which I have just played, and which I now entirely regret ever installing.

 

Machine used: Intel Core2 E6600 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 - 2x1GB OCZ DDR2-800 - 2x80GB Hitachi SATA II RAID-0 - Foxconn 8800GTS 320MB - Audigy2 ZS - Corsair HX-620 psu

 

Graphics:

 

Lets talk a minute about the graphics. It's built on the Unreal3 engine, and as we've seen with games like Rainbow Six: Vegas, Bioshock, etc, can look incredible. Especially on high-end PC's that are capable of 1600x1200 resolution or greater (and let's be honest about the horsepower necessary to get the Unreal3 engine to run at 1600x1200 or above).

 

Ok, so what's the first thing I am greeted with after the game finally loads through about 190 splash screens? The main menu. I move my mouse to make the cursor go to game options to max out the graphics on it, and there's no cursor.

 

WTF? Am I missing something? Mouse = does nothing, and the message at the bottom is saying "hit / Enter to blah blah blah"

 

Ok, maybe I just need to tell it to turn the mouse on? I navigate with the arrow keys, hit enter on Options, and go right into Video options. Resolutions can be changed by highlighting the resolution thing and using right or left arrow.

 

Right Right Right Rig...what? 800x600, 1024x768, then 640x480...???

 

I hit the arrows a few more times but those are the only 3 resolutions offered.

 

WAIT JUST A xxxxIN MINUTE...this is an Xbox 360 port isn't it??? So...not even standard Xbox 360 resolutions of 720p (1280x720 for you pc dorks) or 1080i (1920x1080)??? ONLY 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480?

 

Hold hold hold on here a second. This game was JUST released for 360 and PC, and uses the Unreal3 engine. And 1024x768 is the highest resolution I can use? (I just came out of playing a few different games, some old like Freelancer and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and all at 1600x1200 resolutions, as well as Bioshock for about 10 minutes @ 1280x1024 with everything maxed).

 

How about other graphics options? Well, let's see...there's...Low, Medium, and High. Blammo. That's all you get. Suck it (apparently).

 

Sound? Sound you turn up or down I guess.

 

 

Controls:

 

Ok so I'm really pissed now. I go into controls to see if I can enable the mouse somehow. But all I get for options is a picture of an Xbox360 controller and the ability to change that controller's config.

 

At least there's a "bind controls" button under you can customize a few buttons, and there at least you can set options on the mouse...for inside the game at least. I put reload and grenade toss on the two side mouse buttons, change crouch and sprint, and I guess I'm ready.

 

But I still have to use the keyboard (or Xbox 360 controller!) to navigate all the way into getting the game started.

 

 

Gameplay:

 

This isn't starting out so good. I can feel the anger rising...and that's mostly because I love this alternative reality stuff, and I love the Unreal3 engine, and I been sorta salivating for this game for a long time.

 

So the game doesn't really have much of an 'opening scene'. About the same text I put above about how Churchill instead dies, but hell, I gave more backstory than the intro text screen does. The opening 'cut scene' is a few WW2 Nazi bombers heading over Manhattan Island, and dropping the opening salvo of bombs on the Statue of Liberty. This is possibly the scene/vid you've watched on a commercial or game site preview etc. It really made the anger start to go down because I thought "ALL RIGHT HERE WE GO!".

 

Well, remember, we are looking at pretty jaggy graphics because Unreal3 engine just doesn't look good at 1024x768. But here come the bombers, and then it cuts to I guess me standing on an open floor in the high-rise I'm working on, and bombs are starting to go off all around me, and out to the water I see lines of bombers (both old WW2 ones and newer 1953 jet bombers with nice big swastikas on their sides), and lines of zeppelins.

 

 

And like I said, bombs going off around me...and no HUD, no arrow, no NOTHING telling me what to do. I sorta just wander around the edges and check out what's going on in pixel-ville below and such, then decide I guess the bombs will just fall for days if I keep standing there (and none will kill me I guess either), so I better get moving.

 

I finally figure out that I need to tight-rope bare beams and find a ladder, and start my way down.

 

The game, by the way, is already hitching and lagging and skipping and stuttering. Yet I played Bioshock, RS Vegas, etc at higher resolutions with none of this nonsense previously (today and for weeks lol). Anyway, I guess I finally make my way to some Nazi paratrooper who has landed near me, and I'm told to use my melee skill to grab onto him and then either push forward to snap his neck (?) and toss him off the edge, or push backwards which will make him a...human shield...Ok, but not needed here when he's the only enemy. So I snap his neck and toss him off the edge, and watch his pixelated body fall 30 pixelated floors or such onto a pixelated and badly textured street below.

 

I snag his gun, and continue to make my way down inside and outside and around the unfinished high-rise. At some point I'm using an outer elevator car and I see Nazi paratroopers floating by me between buildings...so I pop a few, they go limp, yay! At least it doesn't take 900 bullets to kill someone (*cough*CoD/Battlefield2/etc*cough).

 

I hit the ground, battle a few more Nazis who all act as if Hitler never did the eugenics thing (ie remember, he killed or sterilized all of the mentally ill, physically deformed, the weak, the Jews, etc, anyone that wasn't "perfect" like a true Aryan I guess is supposed to be). Because let me tell you, these enemies...are totally retarded. I think they are truly droolers because only one out of about 9 shot at me, even when I'm running right up to them with my machine gun pointed in their face. Even when I'm shooting one Nazi, the Nazi right next to him, that is looking right at me, is just...looking at me.

 

Call of Duty....I would have been dead 9 times just getting 10 feet with how they throw Nazi enemies at you lol. But this ain't Call of Duty my friends.

 

 

At some point after what seems like a few hours of just trying to get to ground level of this damn building, I have to take an elevator etc etc and there the game's next level loads (I'm still not out of the building yet, btw). For about 2 minutes after the level was done loading, the game was like watching stop-action film. It didn't even stutter really...it just didn't move or it moved like I sniffed too much bleach and time was going really slow.

 

And the game never really stopped stuttering at any time. After level loads it was a painful eternity before it would get maybe 15 seconds between lags and stutters so you could actually do something other than....watch the wall slowly creep by in slow motion.

 

 

The enemies...they never got any smarter. The lag...it never got any better. The story...never got any more interesting. The game...never got any better in any aspect at all.

 

Two hours into this flaming bag of . excuse for a video game, I'd had enough. Took me a minute to navigate the hell out of this nightmare to a screen that would finally let me exit to Windows (I was about to just ctrl-alt-del and end this mother$@#^%@# quickly).

 

I then proceeded to uninstall the game and start this thread.

 

Sure sure, some of you will say, but Angry, how can you review a game you didn't even bother to play more than 2 hours?

 

 

Well, the answer is simple. My review is pretty basic:

 

I tell you how awful it is, and you save your money and don't even bother with it. It WILL make you angry. Only if you are as retarded as one of those Nazi soldiers, or if you like a lot of pain and torture, will you disagree with me.

 

For the rest of you, take my advice: run away as quick as possible. The 360 version might be better than this, but I can't really see it other than proper graphics like 720p/1080i which would definitely make this pile of trash look infinitely better. I swear I thought I was playing old Quake2 on integrated Rage IIc 4MB graphics except it LOOKED modern...like I could see the beauty of the Unreal3 engine in there somewhere.

 

 

 

This is the unfortunate afterbirth of what is known as a "port". The game was developed, obviously, for the 360 console first, and "ported" to PC. Like every other ported game, this one sucks immensely. (ok, RS Vegas does NOT suck, but it does suck in a lot of ways that make you unable to forget that it is a 360-to-pc port). I don't have a clue how these developers can continue to pump out . and make us salivate at the mouth wanting to buy it. I honestly can't understand how someone at the top of a video game company could say "oh hell yeah this is great, get it out!" when the game is OBVIOUSLY not finished, not polished, not interesting, not worth the money.

 

But I guess the CEO's of game dev and publishing houses aren't really gamers. They are profit-and-loss guys who will rehash the same bull crap game idea repeatedly with innovation (much anyway) because stupid people buy into the hype and buy the game. Much like Hollywood can't come up with anything original anymore and must rehash old movies and tv shows and comic books and instead of putting great acting and plots in them, they use slick computer graphics to try and make the movie better but in the end it just looks like a pile of turds with shiny anti-aliased edges (if even that).

 

 

No my friends, this is the MOST AWFUL game I've played in a long time. My butthole actually hurts like someone tried to force something up there prison-style without my permission. At least the doctor is trying to heal you and uses a latex glove + KY. This felt like a rusty metal baseball bat with two huge prison inmates attached to the end driving it up in my rectum.

 

It's a disturbing and disgusting picture in your head I'm quite sure. That's good. When you think about Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, that's the EXACT image I want you to have in your head.

 

If you even THINK about hitting the "download" button or grabbing the box on a store shelf, I want your butthole to start giving you terrible stabbing pains and this ugly little description to replay in your mind with the volume set at NINE HUNDREDY THOUSAND BILLIONS.

 

 

 

 

My only hope is that Warhammer 40,000: Soulstorm, which I will be checking out next, will wipe away these dirty, feces-covered memories that I have of this game.

 

Comments welcome!

[EllisD]

Now imagine instead: Winston Churchill dies from his injuries as a result of that accident. Britain is strong, but no leader like Churchill appears to save Europe from Nazi Germany.

 

The Allies eventually are defeated or driven back to America. Europe and most likely Africa falls to the Third Reich.

 

 

Fast forward to 1953. You are a steelworker in NYC, on the upper floors of a new high-rise going up when Nazi bombers begin their assault on NYC, and of course, America itself. It was only a about a decade after defeating Europe, and presumably the Soviets and African states that Nazi Germany's war machine needed to build up enough men and arms to make the final assault on the last remaining power, the United States of America. Once the USA is out of the way, world domination will essentially be complete as no nation left, even combining military strengths, will be able to defeat Hitler and his Werhmacht.

 

As the bombs begin falling, and the buildings on all sides of you are being firebombed from the sky, you have to escape and hopefully make it to safety so you can regroup and possibly get together with others or military units to try to push the Nazis out of America...

 

Based on this alone, i would have bought the game. I think that sounds freakin sweet (for a game, dont get me wrong, lol)

 

It really is a shame when a story/concept sounds so awesome, but the final product turns out like this. People will spend their hard earned money on the hopes that the game will turn out as well as its hyped, end up doing the same as you and curse the company from that point forth.

 

Thanks for the heads up, and #^#%@& you for that mental picture !!! :tooth:

[MACarter02]

OH MOTHER FUUUHHHH

 

i just bought this today. i was standing there, looking at the box, had never heard of it before, and said to myself "no game has looked this awesome in years."

 

Yea i just installed and played it for about an hour...

 

here's my take:

 

 

1. No goddamn mouse cursor. wtf?

2. I don't wanna know that a right-facing triangle button will get me into the menu. I am grateful to know that enter will get me into the menu. What I want to know is why the hell do I have to push something to get into the main menu, when all that's on this damned screen is some white text that tells me how to get to the main menu.

3. Why can't I enable/disable HDR, AA, enable VSync, etc? wtf?

4. To it's cred, resolution was set on 1680x1050 automatically.

5. Oh, oh wait-- I have control now. What is that random triangular bluish shape in the distance. OOOooohh, that's the statue of liberty? Wow, after seeing the website a few minutes ago, I was expecting it to look less.... crappy.

6. Boy, what am I going to have for a midnight snack.

7. OH YEA, im supposed to be getting down the building. right.

8. Uhm, hey german man. I'm standing like.... right next to you. Yea, I'm the creepy guy standing here staring at you. Are you guys assaulting NYC with blind people??! WTF is this? Ok I'll just punch your head and chuck you off the building. Bye bye.

9. Man, this picture is the worst Unreal3 picture I've ever seen. And why is this thing skipping so bad? I feel like I'm having a seizure.

10. Ok, after shooting the cliche' red barrels and blowing up a few of you dumbass dudes, im going to uninstall and go cry because I dropped 45 bucks on this.

 

Please dont buy it. For the love of God, PLEASE. Just say no.

[Hemidare]

Thank you guys for spending your money and making it possible for me not waste my money. Your pain my gain i guess.

 

And yes the pretext of the game seemed very interesting, What a shame.

[MACarter02]

Oh, man. You don't even know the excitement I was feeling after reading that thing.

 

I even went so far as to postpone installing and playing so I could watch the vidoes on their website, poke around for some more entertainment. The excitement built and built, and then fell into a big old fire in Mexico somewhere after I actually entered the game.

[Angry_Games]

Oh, man. You don't even know the excitement I was feeling after reading that thing.

 

I even went so far as to postpone installing and playing so I could watch the vidoes on their website, poke around for some more entertainment. The excitement built and built, and then fell into a big old fire in Mexico somewhere after I actually entered the game.

 

lol welcome to my world

[schoolslave]

lol. Thank god I didn't buy this.

 

**traumatized by Angry's description of anal-rapeage**

[Branjo]

A good no bull crap assessment. $45 saved....sorry MACarter

[MACarter02]

yea it sucks but... serves me right... a whimsical buy is a stupid buy.

[Angry_Games]

ALWAYS rent/demo first!

[Guest SuppA-SnipA]

i was gona get this game, thank A_G i didnt, wasnt Lost Planet a port? and look at the terrible FPS people got

[suedenim]

A damn shame for such a promising idea. Games are perfect for exploring this kind of alt reality and the fascination with the Third Reich is a guarantee of a wide audience.

 

A big pile of sh|t on the devs heads as I bet all/most of the work was done on PC's, unless the evil publisher forced them to use 3DMax etc. with an XBox controller.