Cannon Fodder [Atari STe update]

Ugh, another lame Amiga port...

Cannon Fodder should have been far better for the Atari ST. Alas, it was a rushed, lame-ass port. However, cry no more tears for Peter Putnik has upgraded the game to support audio playback of 25KHz digital music - yes, during gameplay. This is making use of the DMA audio hardware lurking inside the Atari STe, and (because it's a coprocessor) there is no CPU usage. Thus, zero impact on the game's performance whatsoever.

Storage requirements are too much for a floppy! So an Ultrasatan or other hard drive device is needed to store the music - this can be anything - instructions are included on how to use convert something from your library. It's dead easy to do using Audacity. Click on my teaser video, above...

What an incredible upgrade! It's something else to experience the game with real music blasting out from your speakers. However, I'm gutted that our lame-ass Cannon Fodder is a pile of rubbish with flick-screen scrolling. Sensible Software should be ashamed of themselves for releasing such a terrible port.

I hope Peter uses this technology again for other Atari ST games. The possibilities are endless!!

Tomtar

Tom...what?

Tomtar is a shooter released in 1993 for the Atari STe by UTEN (NewCore, XiA, Toxic Twins & Unit 17). A "tomtar" is a gnome, and they breed like bacteria, so they will eventually take over the world unless something is done! We asked the Grim Reaper for help, but there are too many for him to handle, so we needed divine intervention - in the form of a machine gun!! Yep, we all know where this is going so let's lock and load to help the mythical Reaper destroy all the Tomtars in what I can only describe as the craziest 5 minutes of your life.

In the right corner of the screen is an Orch - kill it to advance to the next level. Use the mouse to shoot, but beware because this isn't going to be easy, because these little critters can walk, run, bounce, and fly across the screen. Controls work well with the mouse, but I would have preferred the right button to perform another function like throwing a grenade, this would have been superb... The gameplay becomes frantic and more chaotic the further you progress, but I must admit that it's a shame the spooky backdrop doesn't change.

A stupid game that offers nothing more than a maddening few minutes blasting Tomtars. It's brilliant and highly recommended for a few plays - grab it from Demozoo (who also have a cutdown STFM version).

My high scores are:

78,250 (under emulation)

94,740 (using my own Atari STe).

What are yours? Can you beat me?? Didn't think so...