Turning Point dev hits back at poor reviews

Turning Point dev hits back at poor reviews
Wesley Yin-Poole Updated on by

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The CEO of Spark Unlimited, the developer behind upcoming FPS Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, has hit back at criticism from game reviewers, saying it is a “high concept idea” and isn’t targeted at the “core gamer”.

Speaking in an interview with VideoGamer.com at a preview event for Spark’s new mythological FPS Legendary, CEO Craig Allen said the team did its best to execute “with the time and money we had”.

Turning Point, due out for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on March 14 2008, has received five out of 10 and below review scores so far across gaming publications on the web and in print.

He said: “You know, I think that when you try to do games that are about a mass market, and Turning Point is definitely a high concept idea, that with the time and money we had we did the best to execute on, our target was not really the core gamer.

“Turning Point, the idea there was really a high concept idea. I think that we’re finding that the people who look at it like, “Is this going to be fun, something I can drop into, in a world I haven’t seen before and have a good time?” really love the game. People that are looking at it with more of a critical eye of “Is this game revolutionary, is it doing play mechanics I’ve never seen before, is it driving new technology?” it was never meant to do those things. If people look at it in the right way, I think they really enjoy what they see. You can certainly look at it and say it’s not revolutionary, so those opinions are certainly a lot more critical.”

However, Allen moved to reassure gamers that the team had learned lessons from the development of Turning Point and was taking those into the development of Legendary, also built with the Unreal Engine 3, and due out some time in Q3 2008 (July, August, September).

“Turning Point was our first next-generation game,” he said. “We were developing the game while Epic was developing the Unreal Engine, so that in itself is exciting and brings forward challenges. But just being able to get that initial concept of what is a world where America never entered World War II and you now play in a kind of occupied America with Nazi Germany under the rule; just being able to go from the concept, to getting the game out, on the shelf, going through all the submission processes and knowing that we have a pipeline, that was really the biggest hurdle for us as a studio.”

When asked if Legendary would be better than Turning Point, Allen said: “I think it’s different. It depends on what your valuation criteria is. I think that Legendary has more to offer in terms of some unique technology, more unique gameplay and I think that we’ve been able to spend more time really polishing the world and creating a visually distinctive look for Legendary. They’re really apples and oranges. Not everything is meant to be redefining for the industry. Legendary I think is more of that than Turning Point was, but I think they’re both very strong creatively. I think they have very distinct worlds and you just need to make a creative choice on whether it’s a world you want to play in.”

Expect a hands-on preview of Legendary next week. Until then, why not have a gander at the latest screens and videos over on our Legendary game page?