Turning Point: Fall of… coding?
When I first read of this game, I immediately got stoked for its arrival. The entire concept is something that has always appealed to me: a simple shift in an action of the past could have devastating effects on the rest of the future. The introduction recalls the trip Winston Churchill took to New York in 1931 when he was struck by a taxi cab. While he survived the accident, he was left with a limp for the rest of his life. As history shows, he was quite influential in the defeat of the Nazis during WWII. What if he had been killed by the accident?
As the protagonist, you are a simple member of the American working class, atop a skyscraper during its construction. Out of the blue, the Nazis invade New York with a force enough to make you just stand there staring into the sky with hell raining down upon you. You eventually make your way down the skyscraper and join a small militia force in an attempt to repel the invading Nazi forces. As the story progresses, you find yourself fighting as an insurgent… very cool. The plot is original, provided that you ignore the fact that you’ve already played too many WWII games in the past.
Despite all of the somewhat realistic weapons you are giving, this game was obviously rushed. There are so many graphical and mechanical glitches that it will downright annoy the hell out of you. A rescued scientist apparently can glide across the tiled floor without moving from his “running” stance? What the hell is going on here? Numerous times, you’ll want to drop your tommy gun so you can briefly use a shotgun to clear a narrow hallway filled with Nazis shouting German at you. Once done, you return to the spot of the tommy gun no more than 10 feet away from you to find that it has disappeared. Now that’s complete BS, if you ask me!
CodeMasters attempted to include some mini-games, but failed. Attaching wires to arm a bomb? No repercussions for failures? What the hell were you thinking? Mini-games are supposed to be challenging and distracting enough to help add to the game. This just got annoying. It didn’t happen often (thank god), but was just plain dumb.
Then there are the achievements. If you are looking for some easy gamer points, then pick this up or borrow it from a friend. Achievements continuously pop up for the simplest of actions. Sure, I enjoy pumping my gamer score up (currently at 10,377), but at least make them a challenge to get. But then you can point out the multiplayer achievements: they will take god knows how long to get because they are driven on getting 300 wins in ranked team games.
Speaking of multiplayer, it’s kind of lame. Deathmatch is pretty cool because it’s all based on how often you get hit. Just like in the game itself, there are no med-kits; if you get hit too much within a certain period of time, you die. This actually makes deathmatch entertaining, because if you are getting sliced to pieces, you can simply hide behind something and hope that you regain enough health before your enemy can get another shot off on you. Team matches, though, are frustrating. You can only tell what team your target is on when you are close enough to them. It might prove to be a plus in this category, but I’ve yet to find that out.
Had this game be developed 3-4 years ago, these problems would be considered a minor oversight. But in the age of next gen consoles, these types of mistakes are completely unacceptable. CodeMasters needs to, well, master their coding if they plan to stay afloat, especially after how they got ragged on about Jericho. Developers cannot be making these errors when you have so much insane competition out there. What saved the game was the fact that I get a 10% discount with my FYE card on all purchases, plus the $10 mail-in rebate, which I fully intend on sending in. I feel a little gyped, here. I’ve been expecting this awesome game to tie up the endless amount of WWII games that have flooded the market over the past 5 years and I receive an glitch-filled shooter that can’t even deliver on the promises I was given? Not cool, CodeMasters. I truly love the stories you have created, but you need to smooth out all of these issues.
I highly recommend that you wait until the price on this guy drops. Over all, I’m going to have to give this a 6.75. It’s concept is awesome. The story line isn’t too cheesey; in fact, it’s actually entertaining to see how things develop. The glitches really bring the entire experience down too much to give this a 7.0. Sorry, CodeMasters, but you cannot rely solely on story lines anymore.
Leave a Reply