Oct 23, 2007

We've killed a lot of Nazis over the years. As far as common videogame villains go, they rank right up there with terrorists and aliens in terms of having a hard-on for destroying all of humanity and everything good. But it seems like game developers are starting to shy away from adding more World War II titles to the pile. Turning Point: Fall of Liberty works some alternate history into its premise to throw more Swastika sporting soldiers at you in a fresh setting.

It all starts with the idea that Winston Churchill died in 1931 when he was struck by a car. In reality, he recovered from the incident just fine, but let's say he didn't. Turning Point proposes that without Churchill, England would've surrendered to Hitler, resulting in a massive invasion on New York City.

The game puts you in control of Dan Carson, a construction worker who finds himself standing precariously on the beams of an unfinished building when the Nazis strike.

You've played many shooters like this before with linear objectives in levels that create the illusion that you're in an open world. But with legions of giant zeppelins soaring ominously overhead and over-the-top explosions popping all about, Turning Point seems to do a good job of convincing you that you're in the thick of an all out invasion.

Since you've played so many shooters like this, Turning Point can also skip past an overly detailed tutorial system, and lets you learn the ropes of moving about on your own as you make your way from one checkpoint to the next.

Until you liberate a gun from a German paratrooper with the game's grappling system, Turning Point lets you drink in the atmosphere as fighter planes soar overhead amidst all the chaos. The grappling system seems similar to the one we've seen for The Bourne Conspiracy. Get up close and personal to an enemy, push up, and you'll use the environment to kill your foe with your bare hands.