Cannon Fodder is one of my all time favorite games, and is the first game I can remember ever playing, and still love playing it to this very day! Anyone who has ever played this game will more than likely remember most of it’s feature, the names of the soldiers Jopps and Jools probably the first thing that pops into their heads.
The game-play is a simple point and click affair, which is easy to learn; meaning even the pre-teen gamers out there can soon master the controls.
At the beginning of each level you start with a set number of soldiers used to eliminate the opposition, and if a soldier survives a mission he goes up in rank meaning he becomes a better soldier. The levels obviously start off easily against weak enemy soldiers, but the difficulty soon picks up with the introduction of enemy soldiers being armed with grenades and bazookas. One of the factors that made cannon fodder so addictive in it’s hey-day and makes is still addictive now is the fact that it soon becomes extremely hard up to the point of being infuriatingly impossible. This means that even though I started playing this classic about 15 years ago, I still cannot complete the entire game (it really is that hard!).
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different missions include forest warfare (including some crazy tribes), an arctic setting and a Grand Canyon type desert. All these ‘worlds’ come complete with their own cool obstacles such as sinking sand, cliffs and water; each with their own hazardous features making the game even more challenging. The graphics are simple, but the textures are good for its age, although the soldiers are just moving animated blobs that move around your screen. The game is full of some pretty cool and often funny animations. With soldiers sent flying when shot, with a good dose of blood thrown in, and enemy huts exploding in a fireball sending sometimes-fatal debris flying in all directions, this game can look pretty violent in an A-Team sort of way.
The sound is on a pair with the graphics, being simple yet effective to really add atmosphere to this classic. However after a while you may want to turn down your speakers as the repetitive gunfire, sound of birds squawking and cries from hit soldiers can become quite irritating and gets in the way of this truly magnificent piece of game-play history.
