Cannon Fodder

"Control sadistic little men and make them kill other sadistic little men!"

Cannon Fodder is an endearing little game filled with charm and humour in a completely charmless and unfunny situation: war.

The basic premise behind Cannon Fodder is that a Fidel Castro look-alike has started a big war and you must go in there with your little troops and stop him. Pretty threadbare, but it is an action game so the story isn't really the main focus. The gameplay is. And oh how it shines.

Each mission you are given a set amount of troops between 1 and 5. They have the capability to weild machine guns, bazookas and grenades. They can race around in all manner of vehicles and commandeer grounded weaponry.

You start the game off with a limited amount of troops and after every campaign you complete (a campaign consists of between 1 and 6 missions) you receive an extra fifty men to do your bidding. Most of the men have cute little names like floppy, dopey, jools, jops, etc. Every time a mission is completed the men who participated increase in rank from private to general. They get their actual promotions at the end of the campaigns. As the rank increases they supposedly get a slight increase in accuracy and the like but I haven't really noticed anything of the sort. When you have 3 men or over you are able to split your men into two or three groups to tackle problems from different directions. This adds a more tactical edge to the game but I found myself barely using it as it becomes more difficult to tell just where and how your little men are doing.

The best part of the game is that you really start to feel for the little guys. Jools and Jops are with you from the start, and when (if) they die it can really hit you hard. I like to test myself to see how long I can keep them, restarting mission after to mission just so I can get them to General!

The graphics are a little tiny, but this kinda suits the game. The backgrounds are very nice looking and while not incredibly detailed or varied they fit the mood perfectly. The sound effects are just perfect and you'll find yourself cracking a smile as your men get impaled on a stick just because of the sound they make!

Cannon Fodder is a hugely fun game to play, the only real problem being a lack of a multiplayer option. This would have been perfect, but alas it was not to be...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/01, Updated 07/31/02