Turning Point: Fall of Liberty Demo Impressions
by Dylan Duarte on January 23, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty does a lot of things right, but misses the mark where it counts.
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty presents an interesting alternate-history premise. On December 13th, 1931, Winston Churchill was struck by a car while visiting New York City. He was injured, but he survived (Note: this is all true). Fall of Liberty deviates from history when it presents the question: What if Winston Churchill hadn’t survived?
Without the great leader’s help in WWII, the German Army grows stronger than ever. As the game begins, a Nazi fleet descends upon New York City.
You take control almost immediately. Your character is a construction worker and you find yourself up on some scaffolding as chaos reigns all around you. You must make your way down the scaffolding as your co-workers plunge to their deaths. I wish I could’ve helped them, and at times it feels as if you should be able to, but everything is happening so fast that it’s understandable that you would immediately run for safety.
The atmosphere and feeling here is great, but it’s ruined by some pretty terrible graphics. The screenshots for the game didn’t look that bad, but in action everything looks very unimpressive, such as the awful textures. The character animations also look very stiff and unrealistic, for the most part.
However, those previous gripes are small potatoes when compared to the game’s absolutely atrocious shooting. Enemies show no signs of flinching or anything while being shot and it isn’t until you see the death animation that you know you’ve been making any progress. The AI is decent. Some enemies will run at you and make no attempt to hide, but plenty will run for cover and some will even blind fire.
The game has a fun grapple mechanic, where you can instantly kill opponents with the butt of your gun (there was one part where you could throw a guy off a building) or use them as a human shield. The feature works well and unlike Turok, the game is challenging, so charging someone head-on in hopes of grappling them will usually get you killed.
At the end of the demo, you’ll hop in the back of a truck and watch behind you as people struggle to stay alive. A building in the center of the background collapses, sending a shockwave and dust cloud straight at you. Again, if it weren’t for the lackluster graphics, this sequence would be amazing.
There is definite potential here, but it’s completely buried underneath the poor graphics and flawed shooting.
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on January 24, 2008 8:39 pm
Spot on review. This was a game with so much potential that has been ruined by poor graphics and poor use of the UT3 engine. I really wanted to like this game, and couldn’t. It’s like the game needs sending for a polishing layer, but this close to release I can’t see it happening.
on January 24, 2008 11:51 pm
Hey Minty,
Thanks for the kind words. Why don’t you upload an avatar and make yourself at home. Things are going to get very interesting around here in the next few months.
Chad-
on January 24, 2008 11:59 pm
Minty-
What Chad said, man. Thanks.
And I completely agree. I think with a nice coat of polish, the game really could be something special. Like you said, though, it’s probably not going to happen.
on January 25, 2008 12:04 am
The worst thing was that all the screen shots pre-demo looked awesome. Then they released the screens and the demo and you’re left wondering “what happened”.
I was writing a preview trying to find something nice to say- and I really struggled lol.
on January 25, 2008 12:26 am
Minty, your icon is very colorful. I like it.
: )
on January 25, 2008 12:30 am
It’s just showing as a black square on mine - it shouldn’t be lol
on January 25, 2008 12:32 am
Did you upload a gif or a jpg? I think our current uploader thing only supports jpg files.
That may be the problem. Don’t give up! You can do it.
on January 28, 2008 6:38 am
I’ve been browsing the net to see what people’s impressions were of this game. Got to say, your opinion is spot on - and far more measured than mine (check out my blog, comments always appreciated).
Its just so disappointing when such incredible potential falls so, so flat.