In the dark days of WWII the British Royal Air force defeated the Luftwaffe over England and saved Great Britain from a Nazi invasion. This stand caused Germany's leader Adolph Hitler to look eastward and set the course the war would take to Germany's ultimate defeat. But what if the Nazis had gotten ashore and taken Britain? That is the premise of Warfront Turning Point.

Warfront Turning Point is a real time strategy game of WWII combat with fantasy elements added. Unlike other such games this one is set up to be ahistorical in that the Allies and Axis are given super weapons in addition to the normal WWII types seen in these kinds of games. This makes the game seem more like a Captain America comic book or an Indiana Jones movie then a WWII combat game, but it is unique and it is fun.

The game includes a unique hero for each side and this is the protagonist of the scenarios in the campaigns. The hero has more firepower, can help heal his men and drive tanks and other vehicles, making them more dangerous. The Allied hero is an American who carries a funky grenade launcher, the German has his own anti-tank weapon and there is a mysterious Russian spy woman as well.

The game allows you to play either the Axis or Allied campaign at start. There is no tutorial, but anyone that is familiar with real time strategy games will have no problem. The campaign opens with the hero and a few men on a map, and orders are given to move to a certain location shown on a mini map. Along the way new orders are sometimes received for mini missions or added weapons and equipment pick ups.

As is common in this genre there are a few buildings and some research and production. Resources are scattered around the map and trucks collect them, but you really need not worry over much about this aspect of the game. The tried and true tactics of building a horde of tanks and looking for trouble works well here. There is a cap on the size of armies so you can only produce so many units for play.

Scattered about the map board are additional forces that are activated on contact and elimination of any nearby enemies. You will gain some infantry or a few tanks this way and sometimes powerful units like Nazi jetpack infantry. It's better to build your tank force before looking around as the extra forces will still be added even if you exceed the army size limitation.

A typical mission revolves around gathering some forces and proceeding to locations to destroy the enemy base. The game boards are not excessive in size so the story moves along. At certain points headquarters will radio that some new objective needs to be taken or that the enemy is attacking your base. Base defense is important and you should build fixed defenses around it as the computer rarely gathers enough force to punch through several pillboxes.

The types of buildings at the base are typical of this style of game. A headquarters to command your units and you can build several other types of structures to produce units and even a power plant to make them more effective and provide power for radar and searchlights. Unit production uses resources so if you run out of them you cannot produce new forces.

As units fight in battle and survive they gain ranks through combat experience. This makes them stronger and more effective in battle. Veterans of WWII games will recognize these familiar game concepts as there is nothing new here outside of the fantasy units. The game attempts to have a little unit spacing so you don't get the tank bunch up you often see in other games, but makes moving a little different. You can group units into battle groups that greatly simplifies moving and combat.

The graphics are what I have come to expect form a CDV produced WWII game, which is very nice and fairly accurate. The tanks move about with realistic noise but their drivers seem to love carnage as they quite often bowl over trees and crash into things about the battlefield. The game simulates day and night and has very pretty weather effects, so it's no slouch in the looks department but it's also nothing really new.

The game controls are simple to use and the game can be played without reading anything as it's all point and click. I can't say much for the voice acting as it sounded corny and contrived, something that seems chronic in WWII games. A little less corn and a little more realism in the acting would be nice.

Overall it's a nice effort at doing something different with the tired WWII RTS genre of games. The fantasy units make the game different and somewhat interesting, but the best part is the scenarios move right along and it doesn't take forever to play a single scenario. A nice effort all around.

Rating:
Our Scoring System