FIWOS Campaign Review

[DCS_moldy]

Here's my one sentence review after beating the campaign: FIWOS is a very good campaign, and if you own the Viper module then it is an experience well worth your time and money.

Full Review:

For me what makes FIWOS so good is that it sticks to an area of DCS that already provides engaging gameplay, fighting enemy air defense systems, but it builds upon that gameplay with its own Weasel System to create something that feels like DCS 3.0. The Weasel System will have SAMS limit their emissions, similar to the SkyNet IADS system, but it also adds in AI attack options through the F10 menu, as well as jamming effects. These combine to create a very dynamic environment where you play cat and mouse with SAMS, baiting out their shots to allow you to locate and destroy them.

The Weasel system on its own is very impressive, but it really shines when it is combined with FIWOS's well designed missions. These missions are built to be flexible and react to the players actions. Out of bombs and you missed a SAM before the strikers arrived? Get in there and bait the SAM, drawing its shots so the package can get through. Get hit by flack attacking your target and have to RTB? Well you might get chewed out, but if you did enough and get back to base and land, then the campaign is 100% ok with that result and you might even finish with a good score. 

It's impressive that the campaign can react so well to the various things the player might do. I didn't go out of my way to push it, but I never had some of the typical DCS experiences of thinking "Uh oh, did this trigger not fire? Will I still be able to complete the mission?" There were nearly always radio comms at key points to reassure me I was on track. On the topic of radio comms, while these weren't always the most realistic, they did a good job of fleshing out the world and making the characters you fly with more memorable. The more chit-chatty conversations were generally optional and are the sorts of conversations you could see happening back at base. I would personally rather hear these during a long ingress to the target than read them in a briefing or listen to them in a cutscene before a mission, so I was happy they were there.

These conversations do a lot to flesh out the setting of FIWOS, a Syrian Civil War in an alternate history resulting from the events in GPS's other campaigns but close enough to our own to feel believable. The Intelligence Assessment provided in the campaign documents gives good background to the various factions, and the briefing documents before each mission do a good job of placing each mission in the wider context of the conflict. Missions tended to be clustered together around a specific area or series of objectives. These sets of missions within themselves would feel very satisfying as you became familiar with fighting in a certain area or against a specific faction, but it didn't always feel like you were making progress in a wider campaign. For me this was not a significant issue, but it is something that Operation Cerberus North did very well, so in that regard I felt it was a slight step down.

There were only two other issues I had with the campaign. Avoiding spoilers, in one mission a voiceline seems to give an order to handle an engagement a certain way, but it seems like it's intended that you adjust this approach if needed. In another mission a change in AI behavior in a recent update made the mission much more difficult than intended, but the campaign author has said he intends to correct that. Beyond these two issues, one thing I feel would be a great addition to the Weasel System is the ability to direct your wingman to distract a SAM. It would open up so many opportunities in how you can deal with various threats, especially if your wingman is winchester, but I imagine this behavior would be very difficult to add.

Overall, the couple issues I have don't detract from a great experience. This campaign really lets you get the most out of the Viper in a mission set that the Viper does better than any other jet in DCS. A must have for anyone remotely interested in the F16 in a singleplayer environment.

[ChillNG]

Thanks for the detailed review!