Cannon Fodder 2

Cannon Fodder 2 is a military-themed action game with strategy and shoot 'em up elements. The player controls a small squad of up to four soldiers. These soldiers are armed with machine guns which kill enemy infantry with a single round. The player's troops are similarly fragile, and while they possess superior fire-power at the game's outset the enemy infantry becomes more powerful as the game progresses.

As well as foot soldiers, the antagonists include vehicles and missile-armed turrets. The player must also destroy buildings which spawn enemy soldiers. For these targets, which are invulnerable to machine gun fire, the player must use secondary, explosive weaponry: grenades and rockets. Ammunition for these weapons is limited and the player must find supply crates to replenish his troops.

The game is the sequel to Cannon Fodder, which drew criticism for its juxtaposition of war and humour and its use of iconography closely resembling the remembrance poppy. The cover art's poppy was ultimately replaced with a soldier, in turn replaced by a hand grenade for Cannon Fodder 2, regarding which Amiga Power joked: "The great thing about an explosive charge wrapped in hundreds of meters wound-inflicting wire is that it doesn't have the same child-frightening, 'responsible adult' freaking, society-disrupting effect as an iddy-biddy flower". The One felt the new historical and science-fiction themes an attempt to avoid similar controversy as befell Cannon Fodder. Amiga Power itself had become embroiled in the controversy due to its planned use of the poppy on its cover (also abandoned) and perceived inflammatory commentary its editor Stuart Campbell. Campbell later left the magazine to join Sensible Software as a programmer and worked on the sequel as his first game.

A small team of "essentially four" people – among them first-time level-designer Campbell – created the game, retaining the Cannon Fodder engine. Prior to Campbell's arrival from a journalism career, Sensible Software had devised the game's time-travelling theme and decided upon the various settings. However, it had not yet developed a plot to expound these themes. It was not possible to illustrate the story in the game itself, due to Cannon Fodder 2's simple nature and so Campbell began work on an elaborate "plot-to-be", partially completing a novella intended to accompany the final product.

Cannon Fodder 2 retains the same mechanics and core gameplay of its predecessor, prompting reviewers to say: "It's still as wonderfully playable as it ever was", and to acknowledge "all the amazing control and playability" of the original. Reviewers complained about the lack of plot, with Amiga Power stating: "There's little explanation as to why you're doing this time-travelling and absolutely none in the game. As a result, the game doesn't hang together". AUI called the plot "pointless", while Amiga Computing called it a "slight problem", saying "you have to guess what is going on in the game because there's no plot explanation [...] it's all very confusing!"

The game is markedly more difficult than its predecessor. Amiga Format called this "good/bad news", whereas The One directed its "major criticism" at the difficulty level, saying that "some of the levels are quite simply horrendous", and that the game is "close to being intensely frustrating at times". Amiga Computing also felt the high difficulty to be the "biggest problem": "I like a game to get progressively harder rather than getting virtually impossible after just four missions". Amiga Format also criticised the difficulty and felt "some of the levels are a bit of a drag".