I am something of an alternate history buff.  For those of you that aren’t already familiar with this subgenre of science fiction, let me provide some background.  Alternate history is essentially a “what if” game of history.  Basically, alternate history would ideally take one event in history—the United States’ civil war, World War Two, the Great Depression, or something similar—and change one critical portion of it.  Perhaps Germany wins World War Two, for example. Think how shockingly different the world would be if that had happened.  Or if the Confederate States of America had actually emerged from the United States’ civil war as a full-fledged nation—how different would the world be if the United States were only about half its current size?

That’s exactly the kind of question that Turning Point: Fall of Liberty will ask and attempt to answer.  Specifically, what if Winston Churchill had died, unexpectedly, in 1931?  Double bonus irony points–Churchill was an alternate history author himself, having written an essay for Sir John Squire’s “If It Had Happened Otherwise”.

The extrapolation from that point says that, without Churchill, no one was willing to stand up to Adolf Hitler’s steadily expansionist war machine, and as Hitler goes on his epic-scale land-grab, Great Britain surrenders in 1940.  This gives the Nazis the perfect staging ground for an assault on the United States, and so, they launch.

Stop and think about that for a minute—in 1940.  America didn’t actually get involved in World War Two until nearly 1942.  Before then, there had been lend-lease activities in which the United States supplied other countries with arms and munitions, and that didn’t even start until 1941.  That means that America’s industrial might is probably still trying to shake off the Great Depression, without the impetus of nearly seven hundred billion dollars (at 2007 prices) of goods being produced for use worldwide.  That means, chances are, we’re armed in World War One style while the Germans are coming over in fresh off the line gunboat zeppelins with the entire industrial might of Europe.

Oh, and the Japanese are also taking potshots at California.

If you didn’t swallow hard just then you’re a braver man than I am.

Anyway, you’ll be fighting your way through this remarkably stacked deck as a construction worker in New York City, just as the first wave of the German invasion force hits.  You’ll be playing in first person shooter style (what else?) and have to wage war on several different fronts to kick the German war machine out of your country for good.

It’s a first person shooter, with all that entails.  The controls have been done unto death and pretty much everything in it will leave you wondering if, perhaps, you’ve already played this game before.  The answer is, sadly, yes, you have—many, many times before.  But that’s not what makes Turning Point: Fall of Liberty interesting.  It’s that storyline—that impressive and meticulously crafted storyline that gives this game even anything resembling hope for the future.  As a movie, as a book, as a series of graphic novels, this sucker would have been positively fantastic.  But as a game, it’s less-than-polished approach, redundant and difficult controls, and seen-it-before style leaves it somewhat flat.

There’s better alternate history out there, but not much, especially not on your Xbox 360—I just wish it weren’t so hard to get to.