February 20, 2001 - The term "high production value" doesn't usually enter into the Game Boy Color market. It's not a phrase widely used simply because games are generally limited in several ways -- cartridge space, development time, system power, and an looming sense that extraneous fluff just isn't needed in a portable game. But pop Cannon Fodder in and a whole new, amazing world opens up -- the system's potential suddenly skyrockets and oozes with presentation, as this game has obviously been headed up by a developer who truly cares about its product. Cannon Fodder has always been a great and clever design, and on the Game Boy Color, the game feels just at home as it did when the game first debuted on the PC, Amiga, Atari Jaguar, and 3DO systems more than a half-decade ago.
Features:
War is Hell, as they say, and it's no exception in Cannon Fodder -- the game is a cool, cute, and clever action-strategy title, sort of a Lemmings-meets-Saving Private Ryan. In the game's 70+ levels, soldiers go in, two at a time, to wipe out the enemy threat trying to put a bullet in their brain...or something. While you've got full control over the squad, the control is reduced to a more a point-and-click interface in order to add a bit of strategy into the design -- by limiting the control scheme, you can hide their squad behind objects and target specific areas, or scroll the screen while keeping still to locate an enemy threat. It starts out clumsy but later you'll realize just how well the interface works. And it's been intelligently programmed too: to launch the secondary weapon, you'll have to hold down B and press A -- it won't accidentally fire if you hold down A and press B.
All of the missions in the game are of the "destroy all enemies on the map" design -- the variety comes from how these guys, powerups, and optional vehicles end up being arranged in each mission. And several maps are just enormous -- my single biggest complaint is that the game really needs an overview that can be pulled up, just so you can keep a track of where you've been in a particular area. Some missions also put control to the test, as you'll have to maneuver your soldiers around traps, quicksand, and huge cliffsides in order to keep them alive.
The challenge is to keep your soldiers alive -- you have a finite amount of them, and when they die...they're dead. They ain't comin' back. So it's in your best interest to play conservatively in order to move these guys through the ranks. As you successfully complete missions, more soldiers will join your reserve -- but once you run out, the game's over. It's a major challenge -- but a really fun challenge.
With the trend of developers cutting corners wherever possible in a Game Boy Color title's development, it's an incredibly refreshing change to see what the developers of Cannon Fodder insisted be put into the portable version. The team did have the luxury of a four megabyte cartridge (an option barely two percent of the existing GBC titles have been granted simply due to cost issues -- most GBC games are one or two megabytes in size), but the guys over at Codemasters put that size to excellent use. Yes, there's a pure fluff full-motion video introduction, but man, the detail on that flick is so detailed -- it's so crisp that it's easily up to par with the cleanest PSX presentations, and has digitized music running along with it. But let's put that extraneous intro aside for a second. Much of the cartridge's space is dedicated to recorded audio of several different characters -- it's so crisp that it's hard to believe it's coming out of the dinky speaker on the lower right of the system. A hearty chunk of cartridge space is also responsible for some of the largest and most detailed level maps used in a GBC game. And, of course, it wouldn't be right leaving out a mention of the extremely clever 3D-rendered menu that has to be seen to be appreciated.
And talk about thorough -- the game saves an amazing amount of data throughout the war thanks to the inclusion of battery back-up. Players can choose the name you'll go by throughout the missions, but they can also decide on what the enemy will be called. Not only that, but every soldier that joins the platoon will be kept track of -- if he gets killed in battle, the game remembers how he kicked the bucket, and lists it under his name in the cemetery. The game even keeps tabs on the top five soldiers in the squad, remembering how many kills the cream of the wartime crop scored in battle. Any publisher looking to cut corners and simply offer a password to save a game's progress really needs to look at this game to see how great battery save can be.
But while Codemasters had enough faith in Cannon Fodder to let it go all out with the expensive four-megabyte cartridge and battery SRAM, the company failed to give the game proper distribution -- the game's a must-have, but good luck finding it on shelves.
Closing Comments
I've been a Cannon Fodder fan since the game hit the Atari Jaguar scene -- but the game feels like it's found its real place on the Game Boy Color. Apparently the game spent a mere six months in the works, and this short development time isn't reflected in the final product -- Cannon Fodder is amazingly complete with so much stuff that's not usual for GBC game design. Though it's a direct conversion of the original design, I would have loved to see the game take one more step and offer a link cable deathmatch between two players -- the design just screams Game Link. Maybe for the GBA? Who knows what the future brings for these soldiers...
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