The excellent Bitmap Brothers top-down war game, where you direct troops pixel by pixel. Tense, witty, clever : a classic that holds up brilliantly today.
Your verdict
Category
Action1 player12+
Description
Peon soldiers take part in satirical war missions in this Sensible Software Mega Drive action game. Published by Virgin, released in Europe in 1994. Satirical action game with soldiers completing comic war missions, humorous tactical gameplay.
Cannon Fodder review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
2/5
Story
★★★★★
"Classic"
The soldiers hold in a handful of pixels yet leave indelible traces behind: craters, bodies, blood on snow. The theatres of operation, jungle, desert, ice field, swamp, are told apart by palette alone, and the hill of crosses that lengthens between missions is the game's strongest image.
The sung introduction sets the tone, between a rousing march and biting irony, and the contrast with the content of the missions is plainly deliberate. In play the accompaniment becomes far more discreet, a few repeated motifs and dry sound effects, which leaves the opening music its full charge.
Complete: box, manual and disc/cart very clean. Lightly handled.
Q1 damagedQ6 completeQ10 new
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Collector interest
Cannon Fodder PAL is the European edition of the Sensible Software/Virgin game, released on Megadrive with its satirical anti-war tone. Its collector value comes from the cult status of the game and from the fact that the Megadrive version remains one of the rare console ports faithful to the original arcade-strategy gameplay, never reproduced identically in modern re-releases.
A questionable morality
Leading a handful of tiny grunts through the jungle plays like a delightful action game, right up until you notice the hill of graves growing taller with every mission. The recruits have names, die for good and are instantly replaced, while the menu's jaunty fanfare cheerfully reminds you that war has never been so much fun. The grin curdles a little.
Is Cannon Fodder still worth playing in 2026?
A real time strategy by Sensible Software, Cannon Fodder offers a succession of top down military missions where you command a small squad of soldiers with the mouse or here on the pad. The offbeat tone and the contrast between cute looks and embraced violence make its singularity. The Mega Drive version suits pad handling well. For anyone fond of short tactical strategy and offbeat British games of the nineties, a warm recommendation still valid today without hesitation truly here indeed.
