Respectable port of the PC classic (Cannon Fodder (PC))

Member Name: Murf!

Product:	Cannon Fodder (PC)
Date:	21/07/01 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hilarious, lots of missions, great fun

Disadvantages: Too reliant on luck at times, not as great if you don't have a SNES mouse, missions aren't exactly varied

[Please note that this is from MY site, it is not stolen. This review can be found at http://members.madasafish.com/~kefka/ - and you can check the email given there to confirm that this is the case.]

Remember Sensible Soccer? The concept here is to take the little people off the pitch and on to a battlefield. And has it worked?
Fans of the Amiga version will be happy to know that the game is mouse compatible: playing home computer ports using a D-pad (the cross-shaped thing on the left of most pads) can be a bit limiting. The whole conversion has been done well, infact.

The idea is simple: move the cursor to were you want go or want to attack, and press the relevant button. The missions are always along the lines of 'destroy all enemy bases' or 'kill all enemy' yet this does not make them boring because of the lack of variety as you might expect. This is probably because of the tactics required: you can split the group into 2 for a pincer attack (or a half-hearted kamikaze attack) and once a soldier survives a few missions and gains a rank, you may even try and keep him alive at the expense of others...

There are problems, though. Later missions rely on a lot of luck - when you need to keep collateral damage low, for instance, if your enemy kills a civilian, you get the blame. You may fail the mission before you meet the enemy in this way. Also, there's a bit of trial and error involved. You can blow up an enemy hut, but only to be killed when its roof lands on you, for example.

Other than that though, I liked it. The graphics do the job well enough. Hardly ground breaking, but the tiny sprites and backgrounds are detailed. The sound is limited to SFX mid-mission, but between missions and on the title screen etc. are some pretty good tunes. The intro is sick, though: the beat is made up of the screams of the dieing! The rest is made up of very suitable fanfares and other armyish (you'll see what I
mean) tunes.

There are certainly plenty of missions to get through, and doing so is a very entertaining way of passing a few hours.

Summary: