When I first heard about War Front: Turning Point, I pretty much ignored it. First, it’s from a Hungarian developer that I don’t know a lot about, so it was under my radar. Second, Company of Heroes satisfies my WWII fix. Third, I’m sure I played the plot about Hitler being assassinated last year in Rush for Berlin.

Apparently it’s a good game.

The upper score comes from a guy who liked the Chris Kattan disaster Monkeybone and almost everything else he touches, so it can safely be dismissed.

But it gets a passing grade from Allen Rausch (barely), Tom Chick, Oliver Clare and Brett Todd.

And much of the praise seems to center on the backstory, but not as plot. In a world where the Nazis conquer Britain, kill Hitler and deploy superweapons, only an alliance between America and the Third Reich can stop the Commies from rolling through Europe. With this setup, the designers can give gamers a World War II RTS that isn’t a World War II RTS.

I was going to write a Gamer’s Bookshelf piece on alternate histories based on Roth’s The Plot Against America, but never got around to it largely because the gaming connection is pretty frustrating. Every history based game is, after a fashion, alternate history. No Order of Battle survives first contact with a grogard who thinks he’s smarter than Lee. As far as games that are explicitly alternate timelines, you’re stuck with half-though out designs like Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath.

But it looks like Digital Reality has found a way to make the alternate history pay off by fusing 1940s versions of futuristic weaponry to the usual arms of the era.

Damn them for making me interested.