Cannon Fodder

Cannon Fodder arrived on the Game Boy Color in 1999 as a port of the famous British action-strategy game by Sensible Software, known for its controversial combination of cheerful, cartoonish graphics with harsh anti-war themes. The player commands a small squad of soldiers viewed from above, leading them through a series of missions full of enemy bases, mines, and natural obstacles, while with every fallen soldier a symbolic cross appears on the graveyard shown at the start of the game, clearly reminding the player of the cost of even the smallest firefight. The soldiers have names and faces, so their loss during a mission feels more personal than with the anonymous units of typical action games, and it is precisely this tension between light-hearted graphics and a serious message that made the series a household name back on home computers.

The gameplay combines elements of action shooting with tactical thinking - the player must coordinate the movement of the whole group, make use of terrain cover, and preserve the soldiers' lives, since lost units generally do not return during a mission. On the GBC's small screen, the characteristic isometric perspective and dark humor of the original are preserved, albeit with necessary compromises in graphical detail and pace of action compared to the computer versions. The music and sound effects follow the series' distinctive style, in which cheerful-sounding melodies contrast with the seriousness of the battles taking place.

Period reviews of the GBC version were mixed, since the handheld console could not fully replace the mouse precision known from the computer original, and the controls also had to be simplified for the d-pad and buttons. Even so, it remains an interesting attempt to bring an unusual combination of strategy, action, and social critique to a pocket-sized format. Today, Cannon Fodder on the GBC is mainly of interest to fans of the series who want to see how its distinctive concept coped with the limitations of a small console. The game's portability, meanwhile, paradoxically suits its principle of short, self-contained missions rather well, ones that can be played through even during shorter gaming breaks.