What if Call of Duty were a Build engine game? A.W.O.L. is an interesting but very very rough free game with a well realized arsenal of weapons and levels that range from overly linear to pathologically labyrinthine.
There is some fun to be had in its intense firefights, though its true potential is held back by the spongy enemies (aiming for the head is a must in order to take them down before they melt your health away) and the half baked stealth element: what is the point of implementing a concealment system using tall grass and trees to avoid detection when the game provides no suppressed weapon to take the enemies down silently? There is a backstab move and a very, very low quantity of throwing knives, but that's simply not enough to allow for any kind of covert approach to the levels.
The game features Rainbow Six Vegas-style squad commands, with three invincible idiots following you around and whom you can order to be stealthy or aggressive depending on the situation. Unfortunately these squadmates are extremely ineffective in combat and have such poor pathfinding to rival my buddy Superfly from John Romero's Daikatana, making them a liability more than any kind of resource. You'll be wishing you could turn them off completely.
The visuals are excellent, with good looking levels, voxels and weapon sprites, but the music is an abomination I turned off in one particularly egregious moment and forgot to turn back on, never regretting it.
There is also a super basic and yet absurdly overwritten story that will be told at you via text boxes covering up half the screen while you're trying to play. These interminable plot dumps are not only unwelcome, but also impossible to follow, since they scroll past way too quickly for anyone to read them, which is a problem in common with the comic book-style cutscenes, which speed away so quickly it's impossible to make any sense of what's going on. Luckily these can be skipped and the in-game messages can be turned off entirely, as not to get in the way of the action.
There is enough good stuff here that with a few more tweaks, like less accurate, less spongy enemies, better stealth and the ability to actually aim and fire while leaning around corners, this could potentially become a really fun game.
There is some fun to be had in its intense firefights, though its true potential is held back by the spongy enemies (aiming for the head is a must in order to take them down before they melt your health away) and the half baked stealth element: what is the point of implementing a concealment system using tall grass and trees to avoid detection when the game provides no suppressed weapon to take the enemies down silently? There is a backstab move and a very, very low quantity of throwing knives, but that's simply not enough to allow for any kind of covert approach to the levels.
The game features Rainbow Six Vegas-style squad commands, with three invincible idiots following you around and whom you can order to be stealthy or aggressive depending on the situation. Unfortunately these squadmates are extremely ineffective in combat and have such poor pathfinding to rival my buddy Superfly from John Romero's Daikatana, making them a liability more than any kind of resource. You'll be wishing you could turn them off completely.
The visuals are excellent, with good looking levels, voxels and weapon sprites, but the music is an abomination I turned off in one particularly egregious moment and forgot to turn back on, never regretting it.
There is also a super basic and yet absurdly overwritten story that will be told at you via text boxes covering up half the screen while you're trying to play. These interminable plot dumps are not only unwelcome, but also impossible to follow, since they scroll past way too quickly for anyone to read them, which is a problem in common with the comic book-style cutscenes, which speed away so quickly it's impossible to make any sense of what's going on. Luckily these can be skipped and the in-game messages can be turned off entirely, as not to get in the way of the action.
There is enough good stuff here that with a few more tweaks, like less accurate, less spongy enemies, better stealth and the ability to actually aim and fire while leaning around corners, this could potentially become a really fun game.