Games for Lunch: Cannon Fodder
In a nutshell: War ... cute, pixilated hell.
5/22/2009 7:24 PM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 4
Kyle Orland
Status: "You can't get quality video game editorial from a value menu!" "No, really, you can't."
Developer: Sensible Software
Publisher: Virgin
Release Date: March 24, 1993
System: PC
ESRB Rating: N/A
Good Old Games Web site
0:00 A few friends recommended this as one to check out when I came in possession of a few freebie downloads from
Good Old Games. The old-school action looks right up my alley.
0:01 A helicopter flies over the jungle in an overly round, stereotypically early-'90s 3-D animation. "This is Tumba, on approach to flight zone," says the pilot over the radio. They touch down in the jungle and shuffle off, to calls of "OK, go go go, move move, come on ... oh you lousy bunch of..." from the commander. The chopper flies off and crashes in the distance. Crusher, Slice, Ice, Bambi and Daisy are the pith-helmeted guys left behind. The credits play immediately ... did I win already?
0:02 The title screen pops up with retro-tastic SoundBlaster 16 synthesizer and a confusing picture of a flower. Grainy black-and-white digital pictures of the team scroll by with jokey credits: JOOLS as James Dean, STOO as Elvis, etc.
0:04 More team credits scroll by. OK, this stopped seeming cute and started seeming a little self-obsessed. "A Virgin Publication." Publication?
0:05 I click and a bunch of pixilated,
Lemming-like figures walk down a hilly path. The left side of the screen is cut off, for some reason, but some monitor-level adjustment fixes that.
0:06 I click on the screen trying to adjust the makeup of my team of two soldiers, but instead the game starts! "Mission 1: Phase 1 of 1 -- It's a Jungle Out There." The objective? "With 2 soldiers you must KILL ALL ENEMY [sic]. 13 recruits remaining ... GO FOR IT." OK, so no tutorial then?
0:08 A heavily pixilated, overhead, real-time strategy-style view. Click anywhere and my troops move there. We run into some enemies ... oh no, wait, maybe they're good guys, because they're not shooting. Oh wait, now they're shooting. I instinctively right-click to fire back in their direction, but it's too late ... I already lost one guy. The only sound besides the gunfire is an occasional bird that flies by, cawing loudly.
0:09 I shoot the one remaining enemy hiding behind a clump of trees and it's "Mission Complete." A dramatic header declares: "LOST IN SERVICE: JOOLS." Reminds me of
the "In Memoriam" segment in "This Week" a bit. Also: "HEROES IN VICTORY: JOPS." If they're going to name every soldier I'm just going to have to not let them die, aren't I?
0:10 Back to that hilly path. More recruits walk in, forming a long winding line, but only STOO and RJ are invited in to the squad. I save my progress and move on to "Mission 2: Onward Virgin Soldiers - Bridge over the River Pie." Man, they're laying the puns on THICK! It's another "KILL ALL ENEMY" mission, but this time with three guys.
0:12 PHASE COMPLETE. Tinny victory music as my soldiers jump up and down happily. This map had water and enemies that could swim across it, slowly. It's still not very hard ... they let us walk right up to them real close, then just aim and right-click to kill 'em. The deaths are surprisingly gruesome, given the tiny, pixilated graphics. Lots of red splatter, and awful screaming sound effects. The way the camera constantly sways with my mouse movement is making me a little nauseous.
