Title: Cannon Fodder
Author: Sensible Software
Released: 1992
No. of disks: 3
HDD installable: No
Lanuages: English
RAM: 1meg required
Overhead troop based warfare with tiny sprites set in World War something. Your god-like hand (well, arrow pointer) couldn't directly control the grunts but can tell them to "go here" or "shoot that". In many ways, a mouse driven gauntlet. Enemy production houses should be taken out quickly before you get swamped. Simple, and overwhelmingly good fun.
An accurate wargame in that there were no Rambos and a stray might just swipe Harry or Smithy down. At first, this seems merely irritating - later you'll be cursing at the vile bastard who killed your friend and decide to make an example of him. Your crack team of four charged through the encampment, guns blazing, and where you had last seen him - there the bloody murdered was. We furiously unloaded on him, but we're crap shots, so he was only nicked, thrown back, and lay on the ground bleeding and screaming. A twisted bloody mangle of spurting rithing muscles.
Never was I more swiftly reduced to tears than this day.
Cannon Fodder Theme
March 1992 Interview with Jon Hare
"Lemmings with guns?"
"Well, that's sort of what it's like, though when you first look at it you'll probably be reminded more of MegaloMania. It's a kind of strategy game, with little groups of people running around the map - it's much more tightly focussed in on a small group of people than Mega lo Mania, and the structure of the game actually comes across as more a sort of Paintball thing, with little groups of men running around the landscape trying to get at each other. The Lemmings connection comes from the fact that you don't control your men directly, but must tell them what to do and then watch them do it - whether they live or die can come down to whether you gave them decent instructions in the first place."