A.W.O.L.

The game has some rough edges but for being free and done by a small team it is understandable.
Shooting feels really great, ADS is amazing and the bullets have a lot of impact.
On the other hand, the AI is really bad, specially for your team mates.

It is really worth give a shot and make your own conclusions.
If you are too lost on Dubai level, just skip it. It is not worth the pain.

A good tactical boomer shooter with an interesting storyline. Really enjoyed it. And it's free!

I really like this as a game, and really, I could never criticize a new game made on the BUILD engine.
The game play feels solid, and, in my opinion is a very charming experience.
My only gripe would be the frame drops, it got to a point where it was almost unplayable for me, not sure if it's my pc's fault or not. Still, I'm willing to try replaying this with a better system, it looks great.
God bless Ken Silverman

shooting a whole City filled with terrorist definitely is the highlight of the game and despite A.W.O.L. many floors I still found it very entertaining and definitely can recommend it

It's exactly what you'd expect and that's why I'd recommend it, though the entire game has a sort of unpolished feel to it.
The main premise is you're a recently discharged special forces solider called Dwayne Allen who receives a call from one of his squad mates to inform him that a commanding officer of his that he highly respects has gone missing, causing Dwayne to head out on quest to discover the truth of what happened. Unlike most boomer shooters and their modern imitators this game strives to have a story with more depth to it than providing a simple premise of who we're shooting and why before leaving it at that. The game features multiple characters, multiple instances of dialogue and even cutscenes to further explore and advance the story.
This is where the game runs into a massive problem; the story is presented horribly. I'd go as far as to describe it as close to unintelligible. I'll confess as a member of the esteemed generation Z I do have a terrible attention span but if I'm able to retain interest and comprehend the introductions to numerous other video games I've played over the years this one shouldn't be an exception; but it is. Why is it? Because I cannot figure out what the hell is going on. In the introduction itself, the cutscene is moving way to fast so you can't keep up with what's happening and throughout the game the text in the dialogue boxes shoots across the screen then disappears before you even get half-way through it.
It's unfortunate because it got to the point where I just gave up trying to discern what was happening and just went through all the levels without context. A good story, even a basic one, can alter the gaming experience in a uniquely positive way, adding to the immersion and emotionally investing the player to the characters and events that take place, generating a much more connected and impactful experience. I'm certain if I went back and played this game again, placing much more focus on watching all the cutscenes and putting effort into quickly reading all the dialogue, the story might be understood better but it really shouldn't be necessary to put this amount of effort to understand the story in a game that has no intention of their story being purposefully vague or mysterious.
Speaking of gameplay though, it's extremely fun and there's nothing more important than that when it comes to a video game of any genre. The first thing that hits you as you spawn into the very first level is the attention to detail. In any 2.5D engine it's easy to create levels that are simplistic in nature, often described as 'chunky' and bland, but this game goes miles in immersing the player with their level design. It's not just the creative use of decorative sprites that flesh out each area but the fact that the design of the buildings and environment is sophisticated in nature, avoiding making everything a series of giant rectangles with no diversity of shape or depth. I certainty do feel like I'm actively present in the areas that the game is trying to portray, such as an office building or military camp, rather than a weak imitation that fails to immerse.
The creativity also extends to the diversity they've placed in the locations and enemies you face. When I first saw a couple screenshots of this game I feared it would be entirely set within the same environment facing off against the same few select enemies and was pleasantly surprised to find out this wasn't the case. You'll be killing terrorists, militias and private armies across deserts, jungles and snowy mountains. The uniforms for each are highly detailed and fit in well with the general theme of the levels they appear in. There's one exception for this, however, and that extends to your own sprite and that of your squad mates.
As you progress through the game, with some exceptions, you'll be accompanied by your 'squad mates'. The design of these, and the design of your own character when I saw him in the mirror, doesn't reflect the same quality seen in the enemy sprites. They appear stiff, blurry and lack in detail. Of course they're no where near as important as enemy sprites, but it would've still been nicer if they had some touch up done to them as when I see them rampage around they definitely dampen the immersion to a small degree. Your teammates are controlled by an underwhelming command mechanic that simply provides you with three self-explanatory options; follow, aggressive and stay. This was most definitely a missed opportunity to provide a much more in-depth command system that would've changed the game dramatically, with the potential to perhaps design levels around this system.
The game needs more mechanics in general as much about it feels generic. When you face and kill all the enemies in the first level, apart of aesthetic design, you're not going to be facing anything new in future levels. It's a golden rule in games of this nature to keep gameplay challenging and from going stale that you introduce different enemy types each with their own set of behaviours. Imagine if doom only had shotgunners, it would still be fun but no doubt a fraction of the enjoyment of what it is with the additional enemy roaster. A.W.O.L attempts this by adding another type of solider that is larger than a normal enemy and has more health but otherwise retains the exact same behaviour and mechanics of a normal enemy, therefore not really introducing anything new. In fact I don't really like this enemy, which comes in a few different textures but is for all intents the same creature, because it slows down the fast paced combat with normal enemies. Credit where it's due, there are two different non-humanoid enemies in the form of drones and a soviet helicopter that fly, which is an appreciated unique mechanic, but their attacks are the same basic hit scanning bullet fire of the soldiers you face. Why not have self-destruct drones that fly right towards you? Why not have the helicopter fire missiles towards you that you must shoot down before they hit?
There's also an entire stealth mechanic that barely gets used outside of one level that was designed for it. If the levels weren't so linear, each one could've been designed to take into consideration a potential stealth playthrough, giving the option for both loud and quiet solutions to get through the level. Due to a lack of enemy types there's also no real reason to use any one gun over another, with the exception of the helicopter fight where an RPG is obviously required. This might not really be a negative for some, but associating enemies with advantages and disadvantages for each weapon adds another level of strategy to the gameplay that improves the experience dramatically in my view. Speaking of the weapons, our ammo capacity is quite low. I'll be fair to the game and admit there is plenty of ammo lying around the map, but we can only effectively hold a few magazines for each weapon if we do the maths. I think it would've been better to give us a higher ammo capacity and instead placed ammo more sparsely around the map to balance things out, this also adds to the strategy element I mentioned earlier.
Overall it's a good game and well worth a shot, especially considering its free. There's clearly room here for improvement, but anyone that tells you this is a bad game is being way to harsh in my opinion. I had certainty fun playing this and 4 hours of free entertainment is nothing to shake a stick at, why not give it a go!

It's really cool what they did in the build engine. A more tactical shooter in the engine is dope, and I'm glad people are still experimenting with it since it was not used enough in my opinion, but this one aint really for me. Also experienced a bug frequently where enemies would become detached from their sprite I think. I should shoot at the sprite and that wasn't where their actually entity was I think. I also just died to an invisible enemy.

Great modern Build Engine game. It feels very old-school but also modern-ish compared to the actual 90s shooters. A lot of fun, only lasted a few hours but well worth playing.