Cannon Fodder

Bin your joypad and embrace the mouse

Some games are designed to make use of certain peripherals and Sensible Software’s game is one of them

» Amiga » 1993 » Sensible Software it’s easy to overlook how important a controller is to a game’s overall design. Super Mario 64 was built around the N64’s unique controller, while it’s an exercise in frustration to play NIGHTS Into Dreams without the Saturn 3D controller. In fact, just don’t play Sonic Team’s game if you don’t own one. You’ll thank me later.

The reason I mention this is because it’s particularly important when playing Sensible Software’s Cannon Fodder, as it feels like a completely different game if you play it without a mouse. It is, of course, important to realise that Cannon Fodder remains a highly enjoyable game even if you do play it with a joypad, but if I’m honest, I don’t really feel it does Sensible Software’s game justice.

Play it with the mouse and Cannon Fodder suddenly feels like a completely different experience, as it becomes far easier to move around the playing area, or even avoid enemy fire. The cursor that predominately controls your movement and is used to shoot down your diminutive foes feels like a living extension of you, effortlessly moving where you will it and constantly enabling you to get out of tight situations that might let you down when playing with a clunky joypad setup.

I eventually owned a copy of Cannon Fodder on the

Mega Drive and while it was a solid port I often felt that I was occasionally fighting the control setup as much as I was fighting the game’s many enemies. The level design was still excellent, and the cute soldiers were still hilarious when they went through their death throes, but it never quite felt right to me. I found a SNES Mouse in one of my cupboards the other day. Maybe I should give that version a whirl…