Cannon Fodder 3 Review

It’s time to throw on your army uniform and shine those boots. Cannon Fodder 3 is a new game following on from a very old franchise. Many of you may remember the two really good original Cannon Fodder games from the Amiga days. The hours I spent playing these games brings back great memories. They were great games and one of my all-time favourite game franchises. Well we now finally have the third instalment after so many years. It have been developed by a small studio called Burut CT and published by Game Factory Interactive. As I have already mentioned I am a huge fan of the original Cannon Fodder games. They were so much fun to play. So let’s see how Cannon Fodder 3 holds out and will it keep all the things that made the originals such a hit.

You start of your adventures in boot camp. Here you are taught the very basics of how to play. The have pretty much kept the controls the same as in the originals. You use your left mouse to control your troops and guide them around the area. Or you can choose to use the keyboard if you prefer. To shoot your guns you use the right hand mouse button, and for your secondary weapon like grenades you use the space bar on your keyboard. I have to say it took me a few levels to get the hang of the controls but once you do they are pretty easy and work quite well.

The graphics in the game have been given an upgrade, and although the game still uses a top down camera point of view, they have been given a nice 3D look. They are vibrant and look pretty nice. Especially as you start to blow stuff up.

The sound effects are also pretty nice and you here the screams of the enemy terrorists that you shoot down. You are given unlimited ammo for your guns, but you have to collect grenades from crates that you will find scattered around the map area of each level. You will also find that as you play your troops will get promoted as you progress. As you play and your soldiers get killed you will have to wait until they are all dead, to respawn at a checkpoint to get four more soldiers back. You will also come across what they call ability bonuses at various locations. This for example gives you a short amount of time where you are invincible and cannot be killed. Other collectables include things like health packs that are a welcome sight.

The game itself starts of pretty easy, but the further you progress the levels get harder and harder. The enemy’s end up having weapons like rocket launchers and sniper rifles. You have checkpoints at various points around the map, which come in handy. One thing I found slightly annoying is you need to kill and destroy absolutely everybody and everything to beat the level. This means you are constantly bringing up the map to try to work out where you have been. You often end up missing out on a small area of the map that has an enemy defending a crate. If you don’t hunt him down and kill him you won’t beat the level. Another pretty odd thing I noticed was the loading times. It takes over a minute to load each level. This seems odd in this day and age. However I can’t fault the game because of that, I just felt it was worth pointing out.

So is it worth breaking open that piggy bank and buying a copy of Cannon Fodder 3. Well I have some mixed feelings. Probably more so, as I have such fond memories of this franchise. I have to say it took me a few levels to start seeing this game for what it is. It’s pretty good fun working your way around the level maps and trying to find and destroy everything you can see. The gameplay is pretty solid and doesn’t really have any bad points. I can’t say it’s a ground breaking game though. If you can just imagine the original Cannon Fodder jazzed up to look nice with some new weapons, then you will have an idea of what it’s like. It’s not a very expensive game to buy on steam just now though. If you are a fan of Cannon Fodder then I think you will enjoy it. If you have never played a Cannon Fodder game then I would not rush out to buy it. Well that’s hopefully given you enough information to make a decision; the rest is up to you.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.