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  THIS SERIES IS NOW ON BREAK! Check out our other series over on YouTube. We'll be back with updates in July!Does this game even need introduction? It was released in 1993 for Amiga and DOS and it's a real time military themed action/strategy game. An anti-war message with a humorous twist to it. I was around 9 years old when I played it, and it would be a precious childhood memory of mine...if wasn't hard as balls and I ever managed to get past the first few missions. I sure didn't have the skill or the patience for it back then, and I sure as hell don't now, either...that's why I'm making my buddy play it.  My name's Blint, and Dvid and I run the YouTube channel #BADATGAMES, which you might be familiar with if you followed our River City Ransom or Blackthorne threads. Check them out they're pretty funMuch like when we were playing River City Ransom, I was really surprised by the depth of this game. I haven't even seen it for probably over 20 years so I didn't have a lot of memories of actual gameplay mechanics, but I'm now beginning to see why I failed at it so much. Cripplingly short shooting ranges (that you can improve by saving your soldiers from getting killed in action and thus levelling them up), huge penalties when crossing water, deadly physical objects in your environment flying around you from explosions, landmines, squad based tactics, vehicles... All this combined with what was state of the art technology in 1993: smooth scrolling, buttery-springy camera movement, ambient sounds all around you in stereo, digitized music I'm not sure if there are any differences between the DOS version and this orignal Amiga release -- something tells me Amigas were a bit ahead of most PCs at the time so this version might be a bit more technologically advanced. I'd highly recommend everyone to try this game, preferably with good headphones or a nice set of speakers; I think the ambient sounds really help set the mood. Oh and get some diapers cuz this poo poo gets hard. We will be uploading new episodes on Wednesdays and Saturdays. JFYI we record episodes in bulk for scheduling reasons so you might have to suffer through our stupid mistakes possibly even after you point them out. Thanks for following along!  Part 1: PRETTY BRUTAL  Part 2: OH NO, SOFTY!!  Part 3: SLIPPERY BITS  Part 4: SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA  Part 5: DIE A LOT  Part 6: MAKE IT STOP  Part 7: WAR, AM I RIGHT?  Part 8: YOU KILLED MUFFIN  Part 9: LETTING THE DOGS OUT  Part 10: WAR GETS TO YA  Part 11: HERE'S THE PLAN: gently caress YOU  Part 12: MASOCHIST  Part 13: APATHY TO THE MAX  Part 14: THE TREE FLEW AWAY THIS SERIES IS NOW ON BREAK! Check out our other series over on YouTube. We'll be back with updates in July!If you're enjoying our videos, we'd super appreciate it if you subscribed on YouTube! We have a few older series on there that we don't have threads for Playlist over here! 
crab avatar fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jun 3, 2016 |
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Apr 21, 2016 01:47
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Go to your brother, kill him with your gun, leave him lying in his uniform, dying in the sun. Good luck, this game is pretty sweet.
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Apr 21, 2016 01:59
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I remember getting quite far in this game, because I was adamant about saving all my dudes. Not to level them, but because I wanted those sweetlooking promotions
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Apr 21, 2016 02:26
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Jools and Jops are treasures and the war isn't worth fighting without them 
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Apr 22, 2016 07:17
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I found some footage from some rare, behind the scenes mo-cap they did for Cannon Fodder: https://zippy.gfycat.com/YawningRareCurlew.webm I'm surprised it didn't translate as well in the game though (or it's Brains). Also in case no one told you yet, Tadger is slang for penis in some regions of the UK.
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Apr 22, 2016 08:10
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Softy's name was yellow because you can split your squad into separate teams. I'm unsure how to do it. You need to click on your own soldiers, which puts them in another team. You can see it in video 2, the green snake logo changes into a red/green half-eagle/half-snake logo. To actually separate teams, you then need to click on the squad logo. (I think)
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Apr 22, 2016 08:59
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Such an amazing game. One of the few Amiga releases that I owned while it was still newish. It did take me quite a while to finish though. That last level is just... whoa.
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Apr 22, 2016 11:08
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Good to see people are as excited for us to play this as we are! I for one enjoy eating M&M's and talking about random poo poo while Dvid suffers horribly.  evilmiera posted:I remember getting quite far in this game, because I was adamant about saving all my dudes. Not to level them, but because I wanted those sweetlooking promotions Coolguye posted:Jools and Jops are treasures and the war isn't worth fighting without them  Apparently Jops (Jon Hare) was the design lead and also responsible for the soundtrack, and Jools (Jools Jameson) was the lead programmer. RIP. Niggurath posted:I found some footage from some rare, behind the scenes mo-cap they did for Cannon Fodder: Hah. That's an old video! They do stuff more like this these days, which is also super not my type of music but there you go. No wonder they're filling concert halls though. e: ☑ Unknowingly said penis on the public internet Pea posted:Softy's name was yellow because you can split your squad into separate teams. Oh yeah it took us a while to figure this out. Staying true to our channel's name, we didn't bother to read the instructions at all. Keeper Garrett posted:Such an amazing game. One of the few Amiga releases that I owned while it was still newish. It did take me quite a while to finish though. That last level is just... whoa. Apparently there are 72 phases total in this game. Basically we're hosed. 
crab avatar fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Apr 22, 2016 |
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Apr 22, 2016 11:48
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To avoid being insta-killed by the roofs, always split your team before blowing up houses. Leave all but one guy a safe distance away, somewhere where they won't be killed by enemies while you're away, then send one guy with enough explosives to blow up the house. If he gets unlucky and dies due to shrapnel you'll only lose one guy. Also when it comes to grenades the game usually gives you plenty. Some missions are challenges where you need to use every single one though. You lost one of your guys to the quicksand at 19:40 of the second video, not to the enemy gunfire. No, this is not all of the traps the game has. SirDifferential fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Apr 22, 2016 |
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Apr 22, 2016 16:49
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In the interests of public safety, you have been issued a rocket launcher. Also, this game is super long and gets really hard in places. I'm almost certain I didn't finish the DOS version. I think I did finish the game boy color version though.
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Apr 23, 2016 04:03
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Oops, this vid is a bit late. Saturday night got the best of me D: Part 3: SLIPPERY BITS SirDifferential posted:You lost one of your guys to the quicksand at 19:40 of the second video, not to the enemy gunfire. No, this is not all of the traps the game has. crab avatar fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 13:38
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I haven't seen this since I owned an Atari ST about twenty years ago. I really hope those recruits keep coming in, it looks like you're going to need them.
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Apr 25, 2016 22:02
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Those bazooka guys are pretty drat annoying. These missions work better by going lone-wolf on them, leaving your guys behind in reserve after picking up explosives (so the explosives split evenly). After you lose one guy, the next one goes in and hopefully finishes the mission.
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Apr 26, 2016 18:03
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I really hope those recruits keep coming in, it looks like you're going to need them. SirDifferential posted:Those bazooka guys are pretty drat annoying. These missions work better by going lone-wolf on them, leaving your guys behind in reserve after picking up explosives (so the explosives split evenly). After you lose one guy, the next one goes in and hopefully finishes the mission. Part 4: SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA
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Apr 27, 2016 21:51
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Don't worry, you'll have plenty of practice with vehicles! There's a pile of them in the future. By the way, they assume you'll know how to drive them after this mission, so no pressure.
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Apr 28, 2016 17:17
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Does the number of new recruits vary based on how many are still alive, or is that something that needs to be managed? The attrition rate so far suggests that you'll have to restart pretty soon if you don't get more fresh meat.
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Apr 28, 2016 17:52
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Kangra posted:Does the number of new recruits vary based on how many are still alive, or is that something that needs to be managed? The attrition rate so far suggests that you'll have to restart pretty soon if you don't get more fresh meat.
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Apr 28, 2016 19:56
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I think instead of skidu, they probably meant ski-doo. There's also the possibility they meant '23 skidoo' but considering the snowy all terrain vehicle I think they just meant ski-doo (or it's water bound brother, the sea doo). Also I fully enjoyed the climax of this episode; in my bones of bones, I knew that'd be the inevitable outcome.
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Apr 30, 2016 09:01
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Niggurath posted:I think instead of skidu, they probably meant ski-doo. There's also the possibility they meant '23 skidoo' but considering the snowy all terrain vehicle I think they just meant ski-doo (or it's water bound brother, the sea doo). Also I fully enjoyed the climax of this episode; in my bones of bones, I knew that'd be the inevitable outcome. I agree. That was the only thematically appropriate way to end that level.
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May 1, 2016 01:46
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Yep, we couldn't have planned that ending better. Oh hey, it's Monday! If you're subscribed on YouTube you might have already seen that the latest episode went up on schedule on Saturday, I just didn't have time to post it on here. What a weekend, phew. (Three 30th birthday parties, wtf!?) Part 5: DIE A LOT
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May 2, 2016 19:08
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Coolguye posted:Jools and Jops are treasures and the war isn't worth fighting without them Jops and Jools - your sacrifice against the danger of roofs shall be remembered.
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May 3, 2016 05:07
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At 13:30 I was holding my breath to see if your guys will lemmings walk down the tiny hole in the bridge. I was not disappointed. For extra challenge you can blow up the bridge and try crossing it after that. For whatever reason I always thought that those barrels full of rockets were vegetable containers in which people had hidden rockets. This made sense to my brain at some point. In my defense there aren't that many pixels to work with. at 16:40 what happened was that your guys decided to use an explosive to respond to the enemy fire. This is why you never want to split a group if the ones left behind will be in vision of enemies and they have explosives.
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May 4, 2016 15:08
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drat, we didn't know unselected troops can use explosives. They were throwing them nowhere near enemies though?!  Part 6: MAKE IT STOP
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May 4, 2016 21:17
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crab avatar posted:drat, we didn't know unselected troops can use explosives. They were throwing them nowhere near enemies though?! You guys are extremely hosed. This gets much harder. 
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May 5, 2016 18:36
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StoryTime posted:I played this a lot as a kid, and mission 7 is about how far Jools and Jops would survive. Those bazooka guys are everywhere from here on, and you just can't get caught in a crossfire by two of them. I hope you'll make it to at least phase 3 of this mission, that's the first one I'd consider officially and unquestionably un-loving-fair. "Extremely" is exactly how we like being hosed!  We really don't want to resort to reloading save states but we also don't have time for a 200 episode series so I'm guessing we will have to unless Dvid can git gud real fast.
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May 6, 2016 00:14
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crab avatar posted:"Extremely" is exactly how we like being hosed! War is hell
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May 6, 2016 17:54
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Veloxyll posted:War is hell
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May 6, 2016 22:23
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I'm not sure, but I think that when you wish to destroy houses the only part you need to destroy is the door. Especially the non-destructable houses like in this mission sometimes don't get their door blown up if you toss a grenade on a random spot on the house. Instead, throw it directly at the door. Not sure if my memory serves me right, but it might also be possible to fire through those chain wire fences. I seem to recall some bullets eventually passing through if you fire at them long enough. Not sure if this is some hitbox thing like at 10:40 or if the game fails at collision detection. Are you saving the game? It would suck to have to restart in the next mission  EDIT: Oh, you just said you do. SirDifferential fucked around with this message at 06:09 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 05:34
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I am not sure I can claim hyper competence at this game any more. Because I installed it off GOG. And may have killed Jops and Jools via a friendly grenade. Other fun facts: did you know that if you are firing a rocket/throwing a grenade at the exact time your soldier dies, the throw explosive command goes to the next set of soldiers you have? Because I didn't! RIP my squad. For the holes (trenches) enemy spawns out of, I guess technically a better term would be fox holes. Even if fox holes usually only contain one person. Also the PC version has inexplicable different names - a Lovely set of Bazookas becomes Barmy Bazookas.
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May 7, 2016 05:44
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Veloxyll posted:Also the PC version has inexplicable different names - a Lovely set of Bazookas becomes Barmy Bazookas. Odd im playing my old copy in dos box and its called Lovely set of Bazookas there, Looks like it got censored at somepoint with the gog release or before hand. I was having a really good run and i got to Mission 8, I'ts a grave filler.
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May 7, 2016 11:29
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I don't even really get why you'd censor it. There are literal bazookas. A set of them!
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May 7, 2016 11:31
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Veloxyll posted:I don't even really get why you'd censor it. There are literal bazookas. A set of them! Cannon Fodder caused a huge tabloid-led uproar in the UK. One of the major newspapers ran INSULT TO OUR WAR DEAD headlines, launched a BAN THIS SICK FILTH campaign, got angry quotes from veterans' groups over "misuse of the poppy" and so on. Sensible's publishers demanded the game be pulled from shelves and reissued. Details and a reprinted copy of one of the newspaper articles are available on the AP2 site here. It's perfectly possible the international release used a censored version with names changed to be "less offensive". I dimly recall it had all use of the poppy removed too?
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May 7, 2016 11:57
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pretty sure it still had the red flowers on the guys I got killed screen. I'll have to read up on this more tommorrow between work and Stellaris release
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May 7, 2016 16:20
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Good tips all around, thanks everyone. We had another recording session today and one thing that became painfully apparent to us apart from the game being increasingly hard as balls was that the anti-war message is very, very well crafted, bordering on narrative genius. From episode 8 onward we've had many mini revelations about the nature of war and battle and what it does to the human psyche. This game takes you places, it's really unsettling if you start thinking about it. Part 7: WAR, AM I RIGHT?
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May 7, 2016 22:13
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Loxbourne posted:Cannon Fodder caused a huge tabloid-led uproar in the UK. One of the major newspapers ran INSULT TO OUR WAR DEAD headlines, launched a BAN THIS SICK FILTH campaign, got angry quotes from veterans' groups over "misuse of the poppy" and so on. Sensible's publishers demanded the game be pulled from shelves and reissued. Details and a reprinted copy of one of the newspaper articles are available on the AP2 site here. Veloxyll posted:pretty sure it still had the red flowers on the guys I got killed screen. I'll have to read up on this more tommorrow between work and Stellaris release I encourage you to read it but basically the British tabloids and apparently some veteran's groups flipped right the gently caress out over the poppy image and missed the main thrust of the game, because of course they didn't play it. This was the mid 90's and video games were assumed to be inherently bad. The Daily Star posted:
The various 90's moral panics around video games got pretty nasty. The one around this game was one of the worst in the UK, but probably not as bad or drawn-out as the Joe Lieberman crusade against various videogames that happened around the same time in the US.
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May 10, 2016 02:27
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Cathode Raymond posted:I encourage you to read it but basically the British tabloids and apparently some veteran's groups flipped right the gently caress out over the poppy image and missed the main thrust of the game, because of course they didn't play it. This was the mid 90's and video games were assumed to be inherently bad. The moral panic around the original GTA was, if I recall, specifically engineered by DMA Design's PR team to help shift copies of the game. I'd be surprised if Cannon Fodder's success at the time wasn't at least in part due to the hysteria that the Star whipped up. But equally, this was nothing new: it has been going on as far back as the 1970s: http://gamestudies.org/1201/articles/carly_kocurek
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May 10, 2016 08:17
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Lessons on collateral damage in Part 8. :'( Part 8: YOU KILLED MUFFIN
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May 11, 2016 21:14
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Seal!  I was about to ask what the casualty rate was. This was even better than I was imagining. Don't worry, you'll get fresh meat next mission. The only manly way to do the skido mission is by running over the bazooka guys. It's like playing Russian roulette. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the bazooka rockets don't collide with soldiers, so it's perfectly safe to run towards them as long the rocket does not hit the ground where your soldier is.
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May 13, 2016 15:57
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It's the civilian. It's infuriating. The game doesn't care how he dies. If he dies, you lose. If an enemy grunt grenades him, you lose. A roof lands on him, you lose. Bazooka shell shot by an enemy? A stray bullet? LOSE LOSE LOSE! And then you get to do all those narrow skidoo ramp jumps again. The skidoo in that phase has a mounted machine gun. It's not super useful, but you should generally try to shoot when inside any vehicle to check out if it has weapons. StoryTime fucked around with this message at 19:37 on May 13, 2016 |
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May 13, 2016 19:31
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SirDifferential posted:I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the bazooka rockets don't collide with soldiers, so it's perfectly safe to run towards them as long the rocket does not hit the ground where your soldier is. StoryTime posted:It's the civilian. It's infuriating. The game doesn't care how he dies. If he dies, you lose. If an enemy grunt grenades him, you lose. A roof lands on him, you lose. Bazooka shell shot by an enemy? A stray bullet? LOSE LOSE LOSE! Oh and we only found out about the skidoo gun by accident #StayinTrueToOurNamePart 9: LETTING THE DOGS OUT
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May 14, 2016 22:01
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