Cannon Fodder is a mouse controlled arcade-strategy game! It was released for various home computers and video game console systems such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, PC (MS-DOS), Panasonic 3DO, Nintendo SNES, Atari Jaguar.<br/> The ST version comes in two disks.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY The premise behind this game is simple: You take control of a special ops team that's spawned in a large variety of hostile territories and landscapes, on a search and destroy mission against enemy patrols, military bases, buildings and vehicles. The game is displaying Sensible Software's special sense of humor and uncanny ability to make wickedly playable games, so Cannon Fodder is funny and smart at the same time. Note: In fact, Cannon Fodder is far too smart for the media of the time who were outraged by the game's over-the-top comic violence and seemingly casual attitude towards war combat, all being clearly sarcastic. The available weapons for your team include the standard machine gun, grenades and bazookas. But advancing through the game you'll have to locate and take more explosive and powerful weapons. You will also have to be alerted at all times to avoid booby traps and ground artillery! During the mid 90s, no game could match Cannon Fodder's ingenious level design and delightful attention to detail. The simplicity of its controls is the ingredient that really makes things work and turns this game into a very addictive formula (much like the Sensible Soccer games). In addition, we should never forget the real message of this game: beneath the whimsical cartoon graphics the developers send us a message about the cost of war that will start to weigh down on you as the Boot Hill title-menu screen fills with memorials dedicated to your fallen troops whilst other new recruits keep coming...for more!
GRAPHICS / SOUND The ST version is good, though inferior to the rest 16bit versions, especially in terms of sound. The graphics look nice, with tiny, smoothly moving sprites and detailed environments (jungles, snowy areas, fortresses and deserts) all taken from the original Amiga version. Note that the ST version uses less colors compared to the Amiga (as it was expected). The game's scrolling is a bit odd, since it looks sometimes like a flip screen. The introductory song's sampling could have been a lot better in quality and the sound effects on the Atari ST are well put but not sampled. Though I expected more from the ST version, Cannon Fodder is still one of the best games ever created on the ST machines. It's a game in which: "War never been so much fun!"
CPU: Motorola 68000 16/32bit at 8mhz. 16 bit data bus/32 bit internal/24-bit address bus. MEMORY: RAM 512KB (1MB for the 1040ST models) / ROM 192KB GRAPHICS: Digital-to-Analog Converter of 3-bits, eight levels per RGB channel, featuring a 9-bit RGB palette (512 colors), 320x200 (16 color), 640x200 (4 color), 640x400 (monochrome). With special programming techniques could display 512 colors on screen in static images. SOUND: Yamaha YM2149F PSG "Programmable Sound Generator" chip provided 3-voice sound synthesis, plus 1-voice white noise mono PSG. It also has two MIDI ports, and support mixed YM2149 sfx and MIDI music in gaming (there are several games supported this).