I've just completed mission 7 (of 12), and have several observations. Overall enjoying the campaign so far, would give it a 7/10 if pressed for a score. Definitely going to see it through to the end and form a full opinion then.
The good:
There's an incredible amount of depth, time, and effort that has clearly been put into this campaign. The most obvious example is custom knee boards every mission that recap frequencies, mission tasks, and maps of the AO. The scripting of individual bits is very impressive, and you must have toiled away in the ME for months getting it all to work. Haven't really had any triggers fail so far (which is amazing), but sometimes it wasn't immediately obvious what I needed to do to hit the next trigger.
Fully voiced campaign adds some nice immersion; The vast majority of voice actors do a great performance and are miles ahead of any text-to-speech robot voices. Overall this is a positive, but will detail some areas of improvement shortly.
Apache content hasn't been all that forthcoming in the grand scheme of things, so it's nice to have a formal first Apache campaign - hopefully the first of many! I've scoured the User Files site for any and all Apache content and I'd say this is definitely a step above the overall average.
There's a real effort in the middle of the campaign to get you up to speed on shipbourne operations (mainly just TOs and landings) which was nice to see, and may encourage more missions like this in the future. It even gets you practicing three different types of approaches to the Tarawa, but I'm not certain anything besides the same approach the harrier would take are relevant.
The neutral:
You're likely to need to be rather comfortable with the aircraft before trying the campaign - the first mission especially just drops you in quite a dangerous environment (if you're not using stand-off distance/terrain masking properly) and I got wiped first time round as soon as I let George do the flying. This is more a point for George in his current state, but you really do need to be doing the flying during combat (brings me onto my next point)
There's an awful lot of text in the mission briefings, and not all of it seems relevant. Personally, I would trim some of the excess out so it's more obvious from the start where/what you're meant to be doing. This may help emphasise the story a bit more, and help clear up any confusion as to mission parameters - could always bundle the extra detail bits (e.g. the wall of text on various ship landing techniques) into a supplementary PDF for those looking for more detail..?
The bad:
For the always 2-crew Apache, you can't play this campaign in COOP!!?? What!? Had a look on the forums and not sure if this is a limitation of DCS campaigns themselves though
As mentioned above, the vast majority of the voice acting is pretty good, and adds immersion.
However, there's one VA (PLT of your Apache, and I suppose canonically the playable character) who adds no emotion and is pretty clearly reading it all off a sheet without any context of the conversation. The mission also centres around you flying a UAE Apache, but the PLT is an unemotional American, which only stands out more when you're flying around a very convincingly Arabic CPG.
I would also say some of the dialogue itself is a little clunky at times (again mainly with the PLT) but overall doesn't detract from the immersion of having conversations in the first place.
The voice lines from characters such as the tarawa ATC are incredibly quiet/muffled, but thankfully you also included the text on screen so I could actually understand what they were saying.
There's a couple of rather long missions where you're a wingman to an AI flight lead, and you spend a large chunk patrolling around in a straight line before the AI nearly wipes you out every time they change waypoint; You then fly back in a straight line. Mission 2 for instance I'm not actually sure I let off any ordinance, but I do have a feeling that some of the triggers might have broken..?
Speaking of triggers some are a bit fiddly - one example is you're tasked with chasing down a fleeing enemy helicopter; you start so far away that I ended up several tens of KMs from the AO by the time I downed it before having to return.
If you're a real sucker for details I believe there's some factual inaccuracies such as:
The notion that your CPG failed his test to be an Apache PLT; fairly sure both crew are trained and competent in both seats, and often swap mission-to-mission
Apache pilots being able to read two books at the same time I'm fairly sure is a myth that comes from Ed Macy's aptly-named book "Apache". Still well worth a read despite some potential embellishments.
Reasonably sure the only Apaches that are sea-worthy are operated by the UK AAC. Personally don't mind on this one as the LHA can be fun to operate out of, but again if you're a sucker for detail then there it is.
Overall; lovely to see the first Apache campaign (hoping it's the start of a great many more!) - you've clearly put a lot of time and effort into the details which is much appreciated. Probably a fair bit of effort to do, but I would sub out the PLT voice actor and some of the masses of briefing text, and then the experience would immediately jump to an 8.5/10 in my eyes.
Thank you for your time and efforts!
