Cannon Fodder
Advance Wars + Lemmings + Ikari Warriors + Command & ConquerGenre: strategy - rts
Publisher: Virgin
Year: 1994
System: SNES PAL
Gameplay Score: 4
Gameplay Notes:
Movement is accomplished by moving a cursor and pressing A to call your units to that spot, ala Battalion Wars. This is obviously sub-optimal since we don't have a mouse. It's hard to navigate a narrow walkway and easy to get stuck on a corner. It's also very important to get your placement just right lest you throw a grenade into the face of the guy behind you and kill your entire squad. Moving the units directly with the d-pad would've been much better. You've only got two weapons - an unlimited machine gun by holding B or tossing a grenade by pressing both A and B together. They had three unused face buttons plus Select and Start and yet they went with this awkward dual button press?! What a stupid idea. Having said all that, the gameplay is greater than the sum of its parts. Despite the weirdness of movement and limited arsenal, this game is fun!
Level Design Score: 4
Level Design Notes:
The strength of this game is a long list of stages. They're repetitive but different enough to keep you coming back for "one more." The objective is to kill all enemies and destroy all enemy structures with grenades. Environmental hazards like rivers and quicksand add a fun PvE aspect to the game.
Theme Score: 5
Theme Notes:
I love the hilarious cutesy war setting,. It's like a mashup of Advance Wars, Lemmings, Ikari Warriors, and Command & Conquer.
Art Style Score: 3
Art Style Notes:
While cute, the graphics suffer from poor resolution. The sprites are tiny and lack some details. For example, the map is nigh unreadable, particularly when the structures are the same colors as the forest surrounding them. It was be tough to differentiate between things. Still, it's a very cute art style.
Audio Score: 3
Audio Notes:
The between areas have nice, punchy music, but in game has nothing! Bring your own soundtrack I suppose. The sound effects are amazing though.
Overall Score: 77
Review ID: 3905
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