F****ing Cannon Fodder

[LonesomeAmiga]

I think having finally gotten past Mission 8, you're not gonna go back and start again now - sounds too painful

 

[Somelie]

For me, phase two of mission eight is starting to resemble the Battle of the Somme. I can get past phase one easily enough, but on phase two am almost instantly set upon by a hurricane of bazooka fire.

Still, and just like the commanding officers at the Somme, I’ve been mysteriously overwhelmed by an unjustified sense of my own ability to defeat the enemy, no matter the cost, so I’ll be firing Cannon Fodder up again later to once again commence the slow walk into enemy fire…

 

[edd_jedi]

I nearly did Mission 12 tonight. I got to the last couple of guys left on Phase 6, and then stupidly pressed escape instead of pause by accident, and because I only had 2 men left it wouldn't let me restart the level So as far as I'm concerned, I can do it But the fact remains I just don't have enough troops left, if I'm serious about completing it I really need to go back to the beginning and start again.

 

[paul1981]

...if I'm serious about completing it I really need to go back to the beginning and start again.

That's the spirit!

 

[edd_jedi]

Mission 12 done Managed to do all 6 phases with 12 men, so I've made a slight gain with the 15 new recruits I get. Mission 12 is a one phaser so with a bit of luck I'll be up to 45 or so by the time I get past it.

One thing I've learned over the last few missions is that sometimes you just have to surrender - in fact I've got in to the habit of keeping my finger on the escape key (admittedly to my detriment on one occasion as you can see above!) Sometimes a phase will just s**t on you and the best thing to do is give up before you lose all your men.

 

[edd_jedi]

13 also done! This is a nice easy one, only lost 1 man. Productive day

 

[SpodSpod]

Gawd, you're doing a sterling job. I'm still stuck on 8.2

 

[edd_jedi]

I also did Mission 14 yesterday, so now up to 15. I think I'm going to carry on as I've managed to get back up to about 40 men, which is not ideal but should be enough to get through most missions.

Whoever said earlier that the difficulty doesn't increase too much after Mission 8 is right, the last 3 or 4 missions have been hard but doable. They really should have stretched out the difficulty curve a bit IMO, no need for 7-10 to be so difficult.

 

[LonesomeAmiga]

Excellent - back on track :-D

I'm gonna start it up next week dagnabbit! See if I can get anywhere

 

[edd_jedi]

Productive day - 15, 16 and 17 done! These are really cool levels, new background/scenes (farm land and underground) which makes it a bit more fun. Not too hard either, no phase took more than 3 or 4 attempts. Mission 18 has 5 phases so this could take a while! But I have a pretty decent stock of men again now.

 

[LonesomeAmiga]

So how many are there altogether ?

I can't believe I've owned this game for all these years and haven't played it properly - what the hell was I doing with my YOUTH! ;-)

Nice job on the newly completed set

(Edit: Apparently I can't even remember the thread, let alone the game - 24 missions - mentioned right there in post #1! oh

 

[sprcorreia]

I've started to play the first one too. So far 4 missions, but i haven't lost any soldier. Well, i'm going to try 5th now.

 

[edd_jedi]

I'm not surprised so many people haven't played it all the way through, I've had it since 1994 and must have started from the beginning dozens of times, and this is the furthest I have ever got. Mission 9 Phase 1 is still the hardest so far IMO - if you can do that, you can get to 18.

 

[Paul_s]

Productive day - 15, 16 and 17 done! These are really cool levels, new background/scenes (farm land and underground) which makes it a bit more fun. Not too hard either, no phase took more than 3 or 4 attempts. Mission 18 has 5 phases so this could take a while! But I have a pretty decent stock of men again now.

yeah the farm land is really funny with the exploding sheep and the farmer shouting "get ooorf my laaand!"

Keep at it

 

[LonesomeAmiga]

Do you think it would be possible to get through it all without losing a soldier (with some ungodly number of retries/reloads per mission) ?

Just remembering that some levels you all mention seem to involve losing bods almost as soon as you click Start ;-)

 

[edd_jedi]

There are a couple of phases that IMO are impossible without losing at least one man. There are a couple where you get shot at as soon as it starts so you can only save a few at best by moving, and also there is a phase where you have to shoot from a turret but then cannot get out of it alive because you get surrounded.

So IMO no, not playing it 'properly' at least anyway. Perhaps on a console emulator using save states.

 

[1980-20..]

Cannon fodder is one of the few games ive completed but i did it on the megadrive version.

 

[edd_jedi]

Cannon fodder is one of the few games ive completed but i did it on the megadrive version.

That's still very impressive, but the console versions are a bit easier. Firstly, you can move the cursor while the game is paused, which is fair enough as using a controller is obviously harder than using a mouse, but in theory that makes it far easier. You can't move the mouse while the Amiga/PC version is paused so you cannot prepare to move, create teams, change weapon etc.

Secondly, having watched quite a few videos on Youtube the levels appear to be slightly easier. I noticed this when pulling my hair out trying to complete Mission 9 Phase 1, it looks like a breeze in the Mega Drive version!

 

[edd_jedi]

Few, mission 18 done! This is a really good one. Lots of variety and pretty challenging. It took me quite a few goes as there are 5 phases. These levels require a bit more ingenuity than just randomly walking round and killing people, took me a while to figure out how to get the hostages to follow you.

 

[edd_jedi]

Good day on the battle field today - missions 19-22 completed. Overall they weren't too bad, but I have a new contender for hardest level so far - Mission 22 phase 2. This took me nearly 50 tries to complete!

Can't believe I've got to mission 23, the end is nigh