Computer Graphics Memory Disk Space
Minimum 386 VGA 2MB (560k base) 10 MB
Max/Rec. 386SX/20+
Control: Mouse (required)
Sound: Adlib, Soundblaster, Roland
Notes: intro very sluggish on 386DX40 with DoubleSpace; worked fine on
an uncompressed 486DX33
Reviewed version 1.0 on: 386DX33, 4MB RAM, SB compatible, MS-compatible
mouse.
That ain't no typo. Virgin's CANNON FODDER sometimes feels like an expansion set for Psygnosis' popular game of fatality-prone mini-mammals, albeit an expansion set designed by Tom Clancy, in which the little critters trade their robes for fatigues and swap their suicidal tendencies for some decidedly homicidal urges.
Taking charge of a small squad of not-so-crack soldiers (presumably human, though at ten pixels in height it's really anyone's guess), the player shoots, bombs, and shells his way past 24 missions full of enemy soldiers, tanks, choppers, artillery and skidoos, not to mention a few expendable civilians. If the "look" is Lemmings-esque, Cannon Fodder's gameplay is reminiscent of a cheerier, simpler version of Syndicate-- Syndicate Lite, if you will.
To call the game "cheery" is a bit misleading. There's plenty of blood, and your little troopers have an astonishingly high mortality rate--it's not uncommon to lose several dozen in the course of a single mission. But there is a tendency to chuckle before you start screaming obscenities as the bazookateer who's just blown five of your guys into lasagna once again. Call it "cute carnage."
Opening the box, you'll release a great whoosh of air, along with a tiny 16-page manual and three disks. Most of this is superfluous; you'd barely need the manual if not for the ever-annoying look-up-a-word-from-the-book- every-damn-time-you-play copy protection scheme, and it soon becomes apparent that two of the three disks contain the deluxe animated intro. So what you've REALLY purchased is (gasp) a ONE-DISK game! Those with a fetish for 3 1/2" square black things should go back to Ultima 8 right now... everyone else try to remember the days when practically all games came on a single disk. Rescue Raiders, Lode Runner, Bolo, Karateka--whaddyamean, you never heard of 'em? Damn kids, no respect for history...
Anyway. Installation is fairly painless. Once you get tired of watching the animated intro, you can delete it and just run CF_ENG.EXE instead to get right to the game. One note: the intro ran very sluggishly on my DoubleSpaced 386DX40, but worked just fine on a non-compressed 486DX33.
The intro shows various "cute" troopers blowing things up and inevitably getting killed by the shrapnel. Forget about recognizing any of the animated characters in the game itself: at ten pixels tall they all look alike, and anyway, they die so fast you don't really get attached to 'em. But hey, that's war.
The manual was obviously written for the original Amiga version of the game, but it's mostly clear and often funny, though it's difficult to tell if the writers meant it that way. Page 2 contains an "Epilepsy Warning," which cautions you to consult your doctor if you experience any of the following symptoms: "dizziness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of awareness, disorientation, or convulsions." Hey man, I get ALL those every time I play Doom!
And there's also a disclaimer in micro-fine print: "This game is not endorsed in any way by the Royal British Legion." No kidding.
As mentioned, the game is divided into 24 missions, and each mission is further divided up into 1-6 "phases." During each phase you get a team of one or more troopers (usually two to four) to accomplish your objectives. Onscreen, you've got a slightly-angled 2-D overhead view of the immediate area, and a map icon pauses the game and shows the entire playfield. When the game starts you have 15 troopers, and you get 15 more after every mission... trust me, you'll need 'em. The game, unfortunately, can only be saved between missions--not between "phases"--which means you often have to get past three or four very difficult fights before you have the opportunity to backup your progress.
On the bright side--while the manual threatens Amiga-specific things like "You can only save to a specially-formatted disk," the actual program will indeed use the hard drive.
As for the storyline, well, you quickly get the picture when your first mission objective pops up, ungrammatically but unambiguously ordering you to "KILL ALL ENEMY." Yes, SIR!
The game controls are pretty simple. Your trooper-group is led around by its ranking officer--you point the mouse and left-click, and they'll all march double-time in that direction. To open up with machine-guns, you point the mouse and right-click. To throw grenades and launch bazookas or rockets, you highlight the weapon on the left-hand info-bar, aim the pointer, hold down the right mouse button and then click the left. Voila.
The only complication comes if you want to split your troop into two or more units. In this case, you highlight the guys you want to split off and click the "troop icon," after which you can choose whether the new group will take all, none, or half of the total remaining grenades and bazookas. The option to split your group like this is a nice feature... one that Syndicate could have used. Non-active troops will fire on enemies that approach them, though they sometimes get carried away and use bazookas at point-blank range.
Your basic enemy grunt is no great threat by himself. Just one of your troopers can usually mow down a dozen or two if not distracted. The "distractions" are the problem. Most missions require you to blow up enemy- generating houses, along with assorted tanks and artillery pieces, and lemme tell you, explosions of any variety are very dangerous in Cannon Fodder. Flying shrapnel can rip your troops to tomato pasta faster than Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.
And even worse are the bazooka-carrying snipers that become ubiquitous in the later levels. If you're inattentive, unwary, or just plain uncoordinated, one of these creeps can scrag your whole squad in (I timed this) one second. And don't even ask about the artillery, the tanks and the choppers, the jeeps and skidoos, the booby traps and chasms.
If it's not too hard to kill the enemy grunts, it sure is enjoyable. Blood spatters and sprays, explosions hurl bodies through the air, tanks crush pedestrians with impunity, screams of pain ring out. Parental groups will definitely not find the "wounding" effects amusing, though I did. Occasionally a trooper or grunt won't die instantly when shot or blasted, but will instead fall to the ground, screaming and squirting blood until you put him out of his misery with a merciful burst of gunfire. The pungee sticks shooting up from the ground in some of the jungle scenarios have similarly gruesome results, and the manual helpfully notes that by shooting a dead guy's body you can make him "jump around like a bunny."
Political correctness is not the game's strong point. Apart from the bloodletting, there are some non-too-enlightened portrayals of indigenous peoples. Jungle scenes feature wandering dark-skinned native caricatures-- quite literally "spear-chuckers"--while Arctic settings have "harpoon- chucker" Eskimos and the desert has sombrero-wearing Mexicans. These civilians don't bother you much, but most of the time there's no incentive to NOT blast away at the visible minorities.
But whatever one thinks of the game's moral stance, you have to admit the missions are well-designed, with plenty of variety. There are five different terrain types, from jungles to deserts, and assorted mission objectives such as "Rescue hostages" or "Protect all civilians" (for a change). As the game progresses, you get access to neat new weapons and vehicles. You can jump a jeep off a ramp, Evil Knievel style, or hop into an artillery turret to lay waste to the surrounding countryside. I haven't yet found a tank or chopper of my own, but I'm still looking...
While the actual gameplay is well-balanced, there are some problems with the "reinforcements." Later missions tend to take lots of practice and no small amount of luck to finish, and even so there's usually a high toll to pay in KIAs. Finishing a mission with only a handful of guys left will basically doom you, since the 15 new recruits you get for the next level are just not going to be enough. You have to go back and re-do every phase of a mission until you make it through with a decent number of soldiers before it's worth saving the game. This gets tedious after a while. The whole problem could have been solved by simply allowing the player to save the game after every phase, rather than after every mission.
Though I've only made it halfway through all the missions, I suspect the game's replay value once finished will be low. Some kind of scenario editor or two-player capability would have added mucho long-term value to Cannon Fodder.
And that look-it-up-every-time copy protection really gets on the nerves. Why can't Virgin (and other game publishers) adopt a halfway intelligent copy-protection model? For example, Dynamix's Sid & Al's Incredible Toons only required the player to enter a code from the manual once, during setup.
Overall, Cannon Fodder is a nice dumb fix of action and blood, with a dash of strategic/puzzle-solving elements sprinkled in. If you found Syndicate too complex or too grim, this is the game for you. If you're looking for an in-depth resource-management-based wargame, keep on truckin'.
Not bad for one disk. Maybe it's time to drag out an ancient copy of Rescue Raiders and fire up the ol' coal-powered Apple II...
This review is Copyright (C) 1994 by Jason Kapalka for Game Bytes Magazine. All Rights Reserved.