Cannon Fodder

 Over the past decade or so we've seen a huge boom in video games based on wars with the likes of the record breaking Call of Duty series, Battlefield and Medal of Honour all selling by the bucket load. These games are released almost every year and often met with huge critical acclaim despite often portraying war as something glamorous and sexy. This wasn't always the case and in 1993 when Sensible Software released point and click action adventure game “Cannon Fodder” they were met by a huge wave of disgust from the likes of the Royal British Legion and a number of MP's.

 

Unlike modern war games like Call of Duty, Sensible didn't feel the need to glorify war to make Cannon Fodder fun. Instead of making war attractive Sensible looked at the loss of life due to war, something the game reflects amazingly well with each soldier on your team being given a name when they are fighting and later a tombstone when they are dead (as well as their name put on a list of casualties at the end of the level).

Almost 20 years after the release of Cannon Fodder, few games have given war such a raw feeling, a feeling of wars being about a loss not about killing people but about people dying. A subtle difference but a difference all the same. Though of course there is much more to Cannon Fodder than merely the aspect of death.

  

Unlike many modern war based games Cannon Fodder doesn't rely on you needing to pick head shots but instead look after your troops as you complete numerous missions, such as saving hostages or killing the enemy. This is done via the player needing to use various forms of strategy, such as leaving a soldier on the beach to provide cover for another soldier swimming across a small river or leaving a soldier shooting a barracks whilst another soldier gets a box of grenades. Whilst the strategies are generally quite simple the game it's self is incredibly deep, both on a gameplay level and as a look at war.

Of course with the game being almost 20 years old it's not fared well on the graphics front, especially not compared to modern day war games, which have been described by some as “so realistic they could be from a real warzone”. Yet the graphics do their job of showing the different terrain, the enemy and the player as well as the various items and vehicles that the player needs to see. Likewise the in-game music isn't as impressive as modern games but it does it's job...and in fact the theme tune is one of video games all time great tacks.

Whilst the game does look aged and was controversial at the time at it's heart it's a fun strategy game with a sprinkling of dark humour and a look at war that is much more sombre than other war based video games. It's a truly tremendous game that simply needs to be played by every gamer.

 

89%

Details:
Console-Sega Mega Drive, SNES, Amiga, Gameboy (and others)
Release-1993
Developer-Sensible Software
Genre-Strategy
Players-1

Quote take from: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3883630/Video-game-Battlefield-looks-frighteningly-like-the-real-thing.html

Trivia-
The games theme song was professionally recorded and can be listened to below thanks to gazchap