Turning Point Demo

Speaking of demos, the Turning Point: Fall of Liberty hit Xbox Live the other day and failed nearly every aspect of David Edery’s suggestions for successful demos. I had limited awareness of the game play (I actually thought it would be a strategy game based on the title) and was only vaguely aware of the alternate timeline, Nazi invasion of the United States storyline prior to playing the demo. Needless to say, I will be skipping this game when it hits store shelves.

Edery’s first point is that a demo does not need to be the opening level or the tutorial, but that’s where Turning Point places the player. The game opens with the Statue of Liberty be blown to pieces and then the player finds himself in control of an iron worker on the top of building that is also being bombed. So not only is the tutorial level chosen for the demo, but this first-person shooter game starts with a platforming and balance beam section. It’s quite odd.

He continues to emphasize that the demo should not confuse the player. Unfortunately, and everyone’s experience may differ, but my first encounter with a Nazi soldier was thoroughly confusing. In an attempt to demonstrate the game’s close quarters combat, tutorial text quickly appears on screen leaving me to mash buttons in an attempt to figure out what I was supposed to do. I wrestled with the Nazi for a couple of seconds and then let go, only for the Nazi to stand as still as a statue totally oblivious to the person behind him who just grabbed him. I then ran a circle around him and then he turned around and shot me in the face. After reloading the last checkpoint, I trained my eyes on the small text and finally figured out what I needed to do (press any direction on the D-pad).

The next point, making the player wait for the fun, was the killing blow for this demo for me. It only took about fifteen to twenty minutes to get to the end of the demo and not once did I feel like I was having fun.

This brings me to the next feature of a successful demo: length. Edery suggests that the demo should find a happy balance between being too short and too long. Since it was over before I was having any fun, I would say it was too short. But since I was not impressed by the graphics (which frankly resembled an Xbox title), boring and weak weapons, and silly enemy AI (I don’t think they teach soldiers to run straight at the enemy, do they?), I don’t any length of time would have swayed my opinion of this game.

When it was all over, I was left with a very empty feeling. As Edery suggests, there was no suspense, no curiosity. Why should I care about this iron worker that the player takes control of? Does he have an interesting back story? Is his family in immediate danger? With no motivation, I feel no compelling reason to experience more of this game.

Edery then points to the upsell screen as possibly the last image of your game the player will be left and should highlight what sets your game apart. I don’t know, being an American, I was a bit put off by the constant reminder on this screen that I get to experience the Nazi destruction of US cities and landmarks. This is not a really compelling feature, especially with the final images of the demo in which people are running from a collapsing building in New York. And while I enjoyed Cloverfield, at least it was a fictional monster that allows us to deal with some of these fears, not terrorists or invaders attacking our country.