A verifiable train wreck, unstoppable on its course to obvious self-destruction.

This pretty much sums up Spark Unlimited's latest first-person shooter, 'Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.' You know there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop this train from inevitably ending up as a horribly mangled piece of wreckage.

Indeed, once you've booted up the game, it descends into an endless downward spiral to what must surely be the worst shooter of the year. Considering that we have already had some stinkers, that's quite a statement.

This is the same studio that made the 'Call of Duty' expansion, 'Finest Hour', which makes it even harder to understand how someone with obvious experience in the FPS-genre can turn a truly interesting concept into an unerringly disastrous experience form start to finish.

The only good thing that can be said of the game is that it had an intriguing premise, an idea that, if fully exploited, could have been turned into something special.

It set up the story as an alternate history where Winston Churchill was actually killed in a car accident that really happened in 1931. Without Churchill around, Hitler is on the road to triumph, Britain crumbles and the Nazis begin their invasion of America, starting in New York.

You take the role of Dan Carson, a construction worker atop a skyscraper. Ignore questions like "why Dan?", or "why is he seemingly a master in all types of weaponry?", as these questions are never answered or explained.

Once control of the character is taken, you may think that you're wearing boots of lead — the movement is sluggish and unresponsive — hardly what you would expect from someone fending off an impending invasion.

You'll be playing in New York, Washington and London, with narrative jumps that will only enforce the confusion you will be feeling at this point.

Textures, object pop-ins, frame-rate issues and technical glitches abound. Dispatched Nazis may often find themselves stuck in-between walls, or jerking around in one stationary spot. Character models, level design and atmospheric effects — nothing good can be said about any of this.

The AI is devoid of any self-preservation and will disappoint if you're looking for a challenge. The way the horrendous AI seem to make up for its complete lack of intelligence is by magically re-spawning enemies in an area that you've already cleared. Hardly fair, but I suppose the developers had to think of something to provide a certain amount of challenge in this four to five hour long campaign.

Then there's the multiplayer — suffice to say that, even though it is included, it simply doesn't work.

The only interesting part of the gameplay, though hardly redeeming, is close-combat grappling. When confronted in close quarters with a Nazi, you can grapple with the enemy with some amusing results. For example, you can hurl an enemy off a rooftop, or smash their noggin into a nearby TV set.

It's a charming little addition that is unfortunately not nearly enough by any stretch of the imagination to garner your attention for very long.

Sound design is passable with regards to the soundtrack. The voice over work is lifeless and static, but with a poorly written script I suppose this is understandable as the actors really didn't have much to work with here.

With a slew of better titles available, it's hard to understand why the developers even bothered finishing and releasing the game. Surely they must have realised halfway through development that this is a project that should have been scratched.

Indeed, they should have counted their losses and admitted defeat. It's that bad.