Turning Point: Fall of Liberty review

By Tyler Barber

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is a decent first person shooter. Take that statement, travel back in time to 1995, and it may hold true. But to today's standard, its concept and execution are simply the worst I've ever seen. The atrocities start with the most obvious -- the graphics. Many now-gen games get the "Xbox-visuals" slap, but TP looks worse than bad shooters of the first Xbox era. TP is better suited for its acronym's homonym: toilet paper. But, I imagine the disc isn't very absorbent, which is to also say, it fails in every possible way imaginable.

TP also has the worst case of periscope-fire I've ever seen: enemies face and point their guns away from you, but their bullets magically turn 90 degrees and fly right toward you. The cheapness doesn't end there. Turning Point struggles with making the game artificially difficult by hiding enemies in complete darkness, having shotgun-toting enemies slam doors open just as you approach, or the worst -- forcing you to climb down a ladder (because a 10-foot drop will kill you) while a barrage of Nazis fire at your back.

Love Jerry Bruckheimer's Independence Day? Then you'll love TP too, because it lets you blow up the White House. Cool right? Wrong! Not only is the game atrocious -- PS2 level graphics, paper-airplane grenade physics, laughable animation -- but TP's concept assumes that a) the United States has no military, b) a random construction worker can save the country, and c) a Nazi invasion of the US is actually a get-out-of-jail-free card for the overly-abused WWII setting. Even worse is the thought that this title will have a $60 price tag. Spark, you're the real axis of evil. Simply the worst idea (and excuse) of a FPS. Ever.

Final Grade: F

Burnout: Paradise review. The Art of the Car Crash

By Tyler Barber



It's too bad most gamers don't use their console's USB camera, because my favorite extra in Burnout Paradise, Mugshots, doesn't get the mileage it deserves. Your camera will take snapshots of your victorious moments while racing against your friends, or feral strangers, online. But the main draw here isn't flicking-off someone online, it's the seamless integration of the single and multiplayer modes. With a tap of the D-pad you'll instantly link up to race against, or just mess around with your online friends. Not just a great way to race, there's plenty of stat keeping on each street that updates who's ahead of who for everything in Paradise City. In order to get all those people online, however, it takes an arcade approach to racing that may have some sim-gearheads wanting a bit more.

While the most talked about feature in Paradise may be the online stuff, offline, there's still plenty of racing to go around. Each intersection acts as a starting point to one of several game modes (Marked Man and Road Rage are my favorites), and are noticeably absent from the online racing. Marked Man is a one man race where your opponents aren't gunning for first place, instead they're trying to total your ride before you cross the finish line. In Road Rage there's no finish line -- your goal is to take down a certain number of cars before time runs out. These modes had me the most hype, jumping out of my seat with "holy-shit" phrases cheering the amount of destruction each crash rendered. And glorious these crashes are -- they look straight out of a Hollywood action flick.

Racing across the open city can be overwhelming at first. I lost several races where I was in the first-place position, but veering off the main path sent me into no-man's-land. Even in the losses though, Paradise's open world is forgiving enough that you'll almost never feel too slighted for losing a race. Mainly, I wish there was a quick retry option on the Burning Route races where you earn advanced models of each vehicle. Burning Route races are held at very specific locations, and trudging back all the way to the start when you lost near the finish is a chore.



Another side-step is the gimmicky Showtime mode that replaces the popular Crash Mode of previous Burnouts. Before, you actually felt like you caused this massive domino-like-collision, whereas now you flop along the road like a fish-out-of-water aiming for oncoming traffic. With luck, we'll get to download the classic Crash Mode in the near future.

Burnout Paradise does an excellent job at ushering the arcade racer into the realm of next-gen gameplay. The forward-thinking online integration alone could have a ripple effect on other genres' multiplayer plans. Even if you're not into racing games much, give Burnout Paradise a try, if just for the crashes. My biggest challenge with Burnout Paradise, though, is prying my friends from their Call of Duty 4 multiplayer addiction to join me online.

Final Grade: A-