Cannon Fodder was one of the first squad based war games and one of the most fun.
User Rating: 8.3 | Cannon Fodder AMI
Cannon Fodder puts you in the roll of a squad of marines, who can be seperated into different groups if needed, and throws you into various missions to do one thing, destroy. Most of the missions will simple be to kill all your enemies and destroy all the buildings they spawn from. No wasting your time on disarming bombs or saving hostages or what have you, just pure and simple action. Being as old as it is, graphics don't even compare to the likes of today, but it atleast has its own charm about it. You'll be seeing various different terrains from deserts to jungles to snow covered plains, all detailed rather well. Even the opening scene is interesting. It consists of a gate to the far bottom left with a path winding up and over the hills. Down this road comes your available recruits for a mission, the required number for the mission walking through the door once they're all lined up. On the hill is the crosses of those lost in your missions, full with information on that hero. The stats, if you will, is also another thing of note. Whenever one of your heroes survives a mission, he gets upgraded in rank, giving a reason for you to want all your men to survive and not just depend on the numerous extras you have. You'll WANT to see your men increase in rank, even if nothing beneficial comes from it. Once you're on missions you'll be running through these terrains trying to shoot anything that moves. Sometimes you'll have to be quick since the enemies will often be hiding. Moving is simple right clicking in the direction you would like to move, while firing is left clicking in the direction you want to fire. Simple yet responsive, which is something I appreciate in games. Now, your men won't fire exactly where you shoot, since that would make the game a little too easy, but it is still fairly accurate and shouldn't be too much of a problem. You'll play the game through a top down view that will allow you to see all enemies coming from all directions which can be very useful since your computer controlled teamates won't always see that one soldier coming up from behind. The AI is still pretty good though, and will often save you on numerous occasions, though you'll still have to do most of the work yourself. Cannon Fodder was the first squad game I played and still play to this day. Other games of its kind, like today's games, just take too much to get into and require a good portion of time set aside before you can even think about playing. Cannon Fodder you can get into and play for as little as 5 minutes and still have a blast.
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