The premise of Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is simple: Winston Churchill dies early, and without his powerful leadership, Europe falls to the Nazis during the big WWII. Emboldened by their success overseas, they launch a massive attack against our Eastern seaboard capturing several important cities and the White House. You get to play the part of "Carson" the construction worker turned hero who becomes a critical member of the resistance movement against the Nazis.

As many reviewers have pointed out, Turning Point is a fairly flawed game. Despite those flaws, I had some fun with it.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is a first person shooter. As an FPS, it is merely "OK". It brings nothing particularly new to the table. All of the standard FPS tropes are there: grenade, shotguns, rifles, handguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and floor mounted guns (the kind you "use"). There's a bomb-arming minigame, but that hardly warrants anything other than a mention. It's there and it neither significantly adds to or subtracts from the game. The controls are fairly intuitive, standard FPS. Though, in a nice break from convention, crouching is actually a toggle set on (Y) button. So many games put it on the left or right stick click, and I hate that.

While I've read lots of complaints of general "buginess", I've not noticed any outright bugs. Just lucky, I guess. But I have noticed some issues that probably shouldn't be occurring on a so-called "next gen" console on a so-called "AAA" title. Most of the time, frame rate is fairly solid, but there are times when it turns into a sideshow. Big explosions and lots of fog/dust/debris tend to be the main culprits there. While they usually clear up in a couple of seconds, and they don't generally get you killed, they just shouldn't be happening. The whole point of having a console is that you know its limits and that you can optimize performance so that kind crap doesn't happen. But, since I was enjoying myself, the only real affect that they had on me was a raised eyebrow and the statement (to nobody in particular) of "hmm. that's interesting". The other issue I noticed was some texture popping and some outright texture failing. This is particularly noticeable during the opening sequence. As I was making my way down through the girders and service elevators, I noticed that some of the buildings in the distance had what could only be described as ultra-low-resolution texture place-holders. They really stood out. They really looked like ass. Funny thing about it, though, was the fact the buildings next to them and further out looked just fine.

Beyond that, I had no real problems with the game, and neither of those issues actually prevented me from playing it. They just hurt immersion a little bit by reminding you that this is, in fact, just a video game.

Browsing the occasional forum, I've also seen a number of complaints about the fact that your weapons are kinda of weak. These are WWII era weapons we're talking about here, folks. There were no M16s. The HKP90c hadn't been invented yet. Back then, you were lucky to get auto fire, much less a scope. The first two weapons you'll find are a German MP50 and some sort of single action rifle. The rifle took some getting used to, but if you're patient and take cover, then when you do finally take the shot, the head shot kills. The fact that you're using "iron sights" also takes some getting used to, but adds a certain amount of realism. In reality, it actually is kind of hard to aim at someone through those things, especially if they're running around trying not to get shot.

My only minor complaint about the weapon selection is that at the start of each mission, you get the guns they give you. Which is to say, that after going through the trouble of gathering all that ammo for the sniper rifle, in the next mission, you're handed a Thompson and handgun and told to storm the White House. I really liked some of the American weapons handled fine, but their ammo was typically limited to what started with as the vast majority of what you found came off dead German soldiers.

I will say this, and this something of a spoiler (highlight to read): in no other game have I been able to cut short the speech of a Nazi loving Nazi puppet of a United States President by blowing his brains out. Dude was giving some stupid speech and going on and on and I got sick of hearing it, so BAM! No more treasonous douchebag of a President. You don't even have to wait until he's done. That ruled. As short as the game was, I feel that that highlight alone made the game worth the trouble of playing.

Sometimes you have to consider what the makers of a game set out for when calling it failure or success. I recently read an interview with the CEO of Spark Unlimited where he talked about their goals for making the game. Sure, it could be bullshit, but having played the game, it has a ring of truth about it. They weren't aiming to create a revolutionary FPS experience with brand new mechanics and new technology (yeah, no doubt about that, with the texture popping). They were aiming for a fun, interesting game. And, for me, they hit that mark. I enjoyed killing the bad bad Nazis. I liked blowing up the Panzers with the Panzerschlag. I liked being the hero, even if it was just for a day, because honestly, the dedicated gamer could finish this in one extended sitting.

So, unless you've got lots of disposable income, or you're a collector, you'll probably want to rent it. Or, you could wait until it hits budget prices.