Cannon Fodder had previously been a hit on the Amiga platform before being ported to Dos by Virgin Interactive, who licensed it from Sensible Software. This cute little real-time wargame involves the player trying to complete a series of missions using a squad of hapless recruits. In order to finish each mission, you have to complete several objectives, most often the destruction of key enemy objects.
Rather than opt for a traditional wargaming approach, Cannon Fodder included action elements, as the player actually controls the firing of his/her troops. The general premise of the game involved you directly controlling a platoon of four soldiers, commanding them to walk around and blasting at any enemies that got in your way. In addition to standard gunfire, your troops can also make use of rockets, missiles, etc to clear out enemy forces.
The game was released to the European public at full price, and finally made it to the USA a few years later as a budget title. Thus American gamers didn't pay the product much attention, which is a shame since it's one of the best action/strategy hybrids of the early 90s.
Guide a team of up to four soldiers through 72 levels of combat in this innovative top-down action/strategy hybrid, best thought of as Lemmings crossed with Commando crossed with Dune 2. The characters are controlled indirectly using the mouse, as you activate each soldier or group of them by highlighting them, click the left button to move them to a particular spot, and the right button for them to fire guns at an enemy. You can also pick up grenades, which can be used to destroy groups of enemies or buildings (by pressing both buttons at once).
Each mission has a specific objective, and some feature vehicles such as tanks to make things easier. Your troops can cross water but can't shoot within it, so finding and controlling bridges is often crucial. You can use the arrangement of trees to find hiding places to shoot from, and should watch out for CPU soldiers also doing so.
Cannon Fodder is a game with attitude. It takes war, adds some twisted humor, and the result is a phrase that is probably known to all - "War has never been so much fun!" But don't think this game promotes war; it actually does the exact opposite - it ridicules and criticizes it in every imaginable way.
Your mission briefings are usually "Kill all enemy" or "Kill all enemy and destroy enemy buildings". It doesn't say why or who, but who cares, right? Your score is displayed as the Home : Away ratio, with Home being the number of enemy soldiers you've killed and Away the number of your soldiers who have died in combat. To complete your missions, you will have to choose squads of 2-8 men.
The controls are very simple: When you left-click on the screen, your soldiers will try to reach those coordinates. When you right-click, they will fire their machine guns, and when you press right then left mouse button, they will throw grenades or shoot rockets (if you picked them up somewhere). The more enemy soldiers you kill with a certain soldier, the higher the rank he'll achieve. The higher a soldier's rank, the faster he'll shoot and move. You will also be able to get into various vehicles and operate them. After every successful mission you will get new recruits.
The scenery in the game is very diverse - you'll fight battles in the jungle, desert, urban areas, on snow, water, etc. The sound is nothing special, although the music is pretty cool. There are some minor glitches and bugs, but nothing to be too concerned about. All in all, this game is a true classic and definitely in my top-20 list of favorite oldies. Try it out!
This is one very good funny war game! You and your little troops are have to do different kinds of missions in which you can grow from soldier to general of higher. Go with your troops, kill the enemies, destroy their buildings, etc, etc. The game is played from a topdown view, so you can see the battlefield you walk on. The music and graphics are very very good! Worth a download!
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Cannon Fodder have also downloaded:
Cannon Fodder 2, Cannon Fodder, Cannon Fodder 2, Chaos Engine (a.k.a. Soldier of Fortune), Duke Nukem 3D, Blackthorne, Blood, Crusader: No Regret
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