Game Frenzy

Although the Amiga is a fantastic platform capable of anything from 2D to 3D to Audio and Video, it was deservedly famous as a gaming platform. Its custom chipset combined with its highly efficient operating system opened up a whole new world for the games developers. Game Frenzy is a column dedicated to gaming on the Amiga, and in particular, highlighting certain games that captured the imagination. CAM invites all readers to send in their articles relating to games that they loved to play, or would like to see again. Send any submissions to cam@amiga.com.

This time, for the first Game Frenzy article, Fleecy Moss, CTO of Amiga, Inc. talks half in love, half in hate of the monster hit that was Sensible Software's Cannon Fodder.

Probably the third most asked question I get after "Are you bankrupt?" and "Where can I send you a ticking present?" is "What was your favorite game on the Amiga?" Now, I am normally a person who hates those sorts of questions - what is your favorite film? What is your favorite food? - Because the answer is always "It depends" When asked about my favorite game on the Amiga however, the answer is always there in front of my brain the moment my ears process the sounds. Even more bizarrely, since that answer became my only answer, it has never changed, not through Amiga, through PC, through PS1, PS2 and XBox.

That answer is "Cannon Fodder".

Hard to believe but the answer is often tested. Every time I find something I like and play for more than a few hours, I find myself comparing it to Cannon Fodder but there is always something missing. Indeed I am starting to wonder whether the sepia effect of ageing has perhaps contributed to my love affair with Cannon Fodder. When that happens, I get out the last functioning A1200 I have and play it again, and I find myself running, a star crossed lover across the field of crosses and lining up with the rest of the recruits. It still has my heart.

For those of you who don't know Cannon Fodder, this may sound bizarre. At first look, it isn't anything special (although that isn't a good test - I often find my favorite music albums creep up on my after a few plays, and I've lost count of the number of gorgeous First Person Shooter games that have just become boring after a hour). The game engine itself is almost comical, small little dwarf figures only slightly more detailed than the Lemmings moving across a 2D look down cartoony landscape.

Gameplay is based upon a war genre, with you having to guide a small team of soldiers through a series of missions, each of which is divided into 2-4 levels. Each level has enemy soldiers, fortifications and some super weapons, such as a tank, a helicopter, a skidoo, an artillery gun etc. You control the squad of soldiers and they can be split into smaller teams and given orders. They can all fire their machine guns but can also pick up hand grenades and rockets, which are stingily spread around the levels, and you can also take control of and use some of the super weapons.

So what makes it such a fantastic game, a game that occupied myself and almost everyone I knew for months? Indeed, so addictive was it that we used to spend time at work drawing up plans with new strategies to try that night when we got back home. Here are my six reasons;

1 - Limited Weapons

Ironically, in an era where having more weapons and more exotic weapons seems to be one of the driving forces of game development, I think one of the successes of Cannon Fodder was in having just three real weapons - guns, grenades and missiles. The reason is because with such a limited set, and a set that did not have such dramatic effect upon the enemy and environment, the player knew their limitations and strategy, almost puzzle solving became much more a part of it. You couldn't just get a super weapon and take out the enemy with an air strike or have a sniper kill them all. You had to think about it, everything from sneaking up to the full frenzied Berzerker charge. This fine balance, and the fact that the weapons were so closely linked to each character made it very personal.

2 - Character Development

What a great concept. Give the characters names. That's it really. Sounds simple but boy did you become attached to them. Sure the development was just promotion for longevity, with slightly increased range and survivability but it meant that you actually thought about who you were going to use for certain things, not just in a role based model - sniper, sapper, knife thrower etc, but actually as characters. Several times at work, people talked about taking 'Henry and Chuck' over the snow ridge. It just added another level.

3 - The Mission system

The Mission system could have been better, in that the levels that made up the mission could have been better linked in terms of story line but what made the game so dammed playable was that you could only save between missions, which meant you had to start from the beginning of each mission and get through the 2-4 levels on one go and without losing the squad. The fact that it could take a few hours to do each mission, and that quite a lot of the time getting past a level was more luck than skill meant that this was infuriating; indeed in a world where you seem to get save points every ten seconds, it would probably drive today's game players mad. However, the fact that losing even one squad member could have such a catastrophic effect in terms of finishing the mission or having to start again, it meant that you were much more careful. For example, sometimes in Red Alert, when I have gotten stuck, I've just grabbed every unit and thrown them into the unknown, more to find out what is there so that I can plan a better attack when I restart. I would never have considered doing that in Cannon Fodder.

4 - The Squad system

The ability to break the squad up into smaller units (I think 4 was the most you could do) and the ability to divide the grenades and rockets between them just added to the strategic element of the game. Combined with the character development, you often found yourself faced with difficult decisions. Should I put experienced Mitch and John together or split them apart? How many rockets should I give to team A, knowing that if team A were destroyed team B wouldn't have enough?

5 - Mission Design

The Mission design was always fantastic. Each level was a pleasure to explore and some were so devious that I can even remember them a decade later. The skidoo jump over the river, that bloody helicopter searching for you over the jungle, the canyon where you had to rush the bridge. For me, as for many, the hardest mission, and the one that took the longest was I believe mission 8, combining 3 or 4 jungle missions that had two of the most infamous levels ever devised, the pillboxes with the artillery gun on the Island in the middle, and then the one that must have been repeated every month in CU Amiga and Amiga Format, the 'leap of faith' with the Jeep. Embarrassed or proud, it took me weeks to get past the Artillery piece level.

6 - The Super Weapons

I call them Super Weapons but they weren't - the helicopter, the skidoo, the jeep, the tank and the artillery piece. Their rarity made them something exciting to find but their weaknesses also made them something you were careful to use. When hunting you down they were relentless and could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck (especially when you heard the helicopter coming and had to scatter your squad to protect them) whilst when you had access to them, you suddenly felt empowered with the ability to do anything.

Of course there were things that irritated as well. It did take some to get to grips with the control interface, something that could drive you mad as one small control mistake and you could lose a squad member. The spears in the jungle also drove me nuts, precisely because they were so hard to see and yet so lethal. As brilliant as the Mission based saving was in terms of making each decision difficult, it also made you want to scream when you did get stuck.

The announcement that Sensible were going to do Cannon Fodder 2 sent excitement off the scale. Several of us sat around and thought about how it could be improved without damaging a great game. This excitement grew, right up until we got hold of CF2 and played it. NOTHING. They had changed NOTHING. It was the same game with different levels and the addition of a new alien level that offered little extra. It was one of the biggest disappointments in my gaming life.

I bought the PC version for a friend a year or so later but it was awful. Something in the porting process turned the vivid landscapes and real characters into a horrible pixelated mass that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Jackson Pollock exhibition.

Such a shame.

In these days of high resolution 3D team based shooters, I wonder if there is a place for something like Cannon Fodder, and I have to say that I think there is a place. There is a game called Commandos on the PC and consoles that is the closest I have found to Cannon Fodder, and I hate it. It has gorgeous backdrops and cleverly thought out missions but there is something missing, to the point that I just gave up with it after a few missions.

There is a space for the 3D element but perhaps more in the 3D Real Time Strategy model where you can zoom in and out and spin a camera. This could be attached to squad members or remote cameras and flying eyes, adding them to the kit available. This 3D view could also collapse down on request to a 2D 'map', which could allow for out of time planning and control.

I would also retain the cartoony look and feel. I like explosions as good as anyone else but with the emphasis these days on realism and mega gore, I feel the point of the game has been lost, i.e. strategy. Having body parts and gore spread everywhere doesn't really add to the gameplay. However, this may be because I am now a parent and don't really trust kids to see the different between make believe and reality when in fact they do just fine. Changing to robots or having futuristic weapons that just phase people out of existence could always achieve it.

Multiplayer is a great concept as well but I don't think it would work for one real player per squad member. The whole point of Cannon Fodder was leadership and direction and in gaming, everyone wants to be the leader. However, building a model around one real player per squad would work. It would also open up the possibility of attackers versus defenders, allowing the defenders to build up a defended position, with detectors, alarms, search squads etc. Having large maps and multiple squads on the same map would also open up the chance for some great game play.

The character development model could definitely be enhanced, with each player having different physical abilities - speed, size, agility, survivability, and healing speed. I am not sure about skills though. Whilst more realistic, one of the nightmares of certain games is that if the character with that skill is killed, you are stuffed. A better solution might be that if one squad member learns a skill then everyone else in the group picks it up as well but at only a quarter or half of the effectiveness.

Despite what I said above, I would add a few more weapons. Perhaps the key in maintaining game balance is actually restricting them (no unlimited ammo for these weapons you can find) - remote control bombs, mortars, mines, deployable heavy machine guns, and guided rockets I would add a cityscape, both outdoor and indoor to the types of levels, and I would make the levels much more dynamic - rain, snow, night, wind, with these affecting the game engine. Firing from cover would be safer but cover and the deformable landscape would work properly with the weapons damage and range. Hiding and concealment would be important.

Ah, Cannon Fodder, how I've missed you. Reinvented for AmigaOS4.0 it could provide a great game unique to our reborn platform and show the world that we still have what it takes to produce original and compelling gameplay that gobbles up peoples' lives by the hour.