In his novel, The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick presents an alternate past where the Allied forces failed to fight off Hitler's army and the Nazis dominated the globe. This huge difference in human history stemmed from a single event; a point of divergence that initiated a chain reaction, ending in the fall of every major state in the world. The story spawned an entire genre based around the question, what if? Now, Codemasters have picked up on this idea in their latest first person shooter, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.

The titular turning point in Fall of Liberty follows a similar train of thought to Dick's and is explained during the opening credits - Winston Churchill, whilst still a relatively unknown British diplomat, is struck by a taxi in New York in 1931. In reality, this accident forced him to walk with a cane for the rest of his life. In Fall of Liberty however, he was killed; as a result, Britain never benefited from his rallying efforts as Prime Minister and, along with the rest of Europe, fell under the onslaught of the Third Reich.

You play Dan Carson, a New York builder turned military genius (if the amount of trust and responsibility placed upon him by the end of the first mission is anything to go by) who, in 1953, finds himself at the top of a half-completed skyscraper when the German bombs start falling. Dutifully you rush downwards, taking out Nazis whenever the chance arises. The U.S. quickly falls however and you find yourself as a key player in the American resistance, focused on clearing the land of the free of those who would take the liberty of the populace.

The story provides a great opportunity for iconic visuals and refreshing locales; after storming the beach at Normandy for the umpteenth time, I was looking forward to what is essentially a WWII game in a brand new setting. On the graphical front however, Turning Point unfortunately does not deliver. The Unreal 3 engine can be used (and has been used) to much better effect, so whilst some levels do feature some great sights (highlights include a demolished Empire State Building and a swastika-adorned White House), textures are flat and reused far too often. You know it's getting bad when you start recognising piles of rocks and stacked boxes that you first spotted two levels ago!

It's not all bad news though, as there are some beautiful lighting effects and extravagant explosions. The torch is especially impressive and behaves realistically when you approach a wall. However, only one gun comes equipped with this illuminating device and a lot of the environments are so dark that you end up compromising on firepower in order to light up your path. Sadly, when producing particle effects, the game experiences an unforgivable degree of slowdown. Even shooting a single glass from a distance leads to a horrible stuttering, as the game struggles to keep up with itself, so rushing into a room where a grenade has just gone off is a nightmare, with the action grinding to a halt as the frame rate plummets. It's like playing F.E.A.R., except you have no control over the slow motion and if offers no tactical advantage! Character models are also extremely glitchy, with dead soldiers and guns getting stuck halfway through solid objects or bouncing down the road as their rag doll physics fail.

When it comes to the sounds, the producers obviously spent a lot of money on Turning Point's score; there are plenty of dramatic, majestic musical interludes that match the pace of the action nicely. The weapons also sound accurate and, at high volumes, produce an authentically tooth-rattling effect, combined with an extremely satisfying rumble from the controller. For a game that's filled with Nazis you hear very little German (although, as we've seen in the later Medal of Honor games, this may be a good thing, avoiding campy accents and abysmal translations) but the startled yells and screams of fallen troops, if you can hear them over the din made by the guns and exploding grenades, does not become repetitive. The voice acting, however, is cringe-worthy at best, with supporting characters all adopting the same grizzled drawl that make them sound as though they've been gargling gravel all morning.

Before I get to Turning Point's major failings, I should mention that it is, at the very least, playable. If you're interested enough in the concept to put up with its poor execution, then the game can be a successful exercise in Nazi extermination with the odd highly enjoyable element. One of these is the innovative grapple system that replaces the usual melee attack option; approach an enemy and press B when the hand icon appears, and you enter into a hand-to-hand fight with two possible outcomes. In the first of these you opt for an instant kill and, depending on how you approached your foe, end their life in a number of entertaining ways. Especially satisfying are the environmental kills, which, when available, allow you to push people off buildings, ram heads through TV sets or, in a more delicate situation, drown an SS trooper in a toilet. There is a balanced trade off for getting such an easy kill as well; these attacks all take time to execute and while you're jamming Jerry's head down the khazi, you are still susceptible to enemy fire. As a result, there is an element of strategy in deciding when to go for the quick (and, when required, stealthy) kill and when you're better off sticking with a nice big gun. The second option is to steal your victim's gun and use them as a human shield until they have either succumbed to their comrades' bullets or you no longer have a use for them and bash their brains in. This is an ideal way of dealing with a roomful of enemies and, again, provides an alternative strategy to the usual run and gun attitude adopted in first person shooters.

Unfortunately, performing this move leads to an unpleasant visual effect; every time you go hand-to-hand, climb a ladder or attempt to vault over any object higher than your shin, the perspective rips you out of Dan's head and shows you the action taking place in third person view, before zooming back in. This happens so frequently that the effect isn't so much cinematic as it is nauseating. In fact, so jarring is this technique that it also serves to momentarily pull you out of the action and you feel less connected to the events as a result. Actions similar to these work wonderfully in games such as Condemned, producing a totally immersing experience by remaining in the first person view for the entire game; there really is no excuse for such an uncomfortable system in this day and age. The hand icon is also used when operating switches and opening doors. Where and when it appears is highly temperamental though and you often find yourself stuck with no perceivable solution until a desultory flick of the analogue stick puts the crosshairs over the one pixel that allows you to press a button and continue the mission.

When you're not playing 'find the button', you have some truly shocking AI to contend with. While Hitler's forces manage to throw a good number of competent soldiers at you, there are some standout examples of virtual stupidity along for the ride. It's not uncommon to find an enemy soldier firing ceaselessly into a wall, and frequently, when encountering a single guard, they will stare at you, obviously dumbstruck by Dan's rugged good looks, until you plant a bullet in their head. To compensate for these blundering individuals, the difficulty on later levels is ramped up to an insane degree. Enemies magically spawn behind you and every bullet seems to do ten times the normal amount of damage. Injuries are, as is now common in shooters such as this, tolerable to a level and then you have to go and hide until you've recovered. There is no life bar, but with every hit your vision blurs and movement controls become sluggish. Expect to see everything go black and white and spiral out very frequently in the last few assaults.

The only perceivable reason for causing this controller-snapping frustration is to increase the game's paltry lifespan; a couple of three-hour sessions and you'll be done, with no replay value beyond the four repetitive multiplayer maps (limited to only eight players online). Additional game-lengthening annoyances were the many glitches that caused the whole console to freeze up (common enough when the 360 was a new console but unacceptable nowadays) or prevent a key event from occurring. I spent nearly an hour in one section before learning from the many other baffled players on online message boards that the lift I was supposed to get into often simply does not work and the checkpoint (and a lengthy battle) must be reloaded to continue. Faced with all of this, even the most ardent achievement junkie will find it hard to keep playing beyond the first run of the end credits.

It pains me to say this, but Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is a wholly disappointing experience that fails to live up to its lofty premise. So much potential is wasted in poor execution, unfinished code and sloppy graphics that I can only recommend this game if you really have nothing else to play or are simply aching for a new WWII style shooter; a noble attempt at reinvigorating an arguably tired genre is sadly marred by general mediocrity and numerous failings.

Reviewed by Henry Osadzinski for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).