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What is it about human nature that makes war such a touchy subject? We have always had war: people have always died for their leader or their country, and they are quite rightly looked upon as brave soldiers who gave up their lives in the name of peace.

However, other races and species have their own type of war rightly looked upon as brave soldiers who gave up their lives in the name of peace.

However, other races and species have their own type of war too. OK, so antelopes and wildebeest don't use bombs and bullets to see off their enemies, but the principle is the same - they fight to keep their territory and their pride. There is one form of war or another in all aspects of nature.

Cannon Fodder is a game about war. Controlling a number of conscripts from their enrolment through to their death (or glory), your men go to war with the enemy. Quite often they get killed, but equally they have every chance of survival - they are, after all, armed to the teeth. As you may guess, their fate is entirely up to your decisions and your dexterity with a mouse.

Each of your soldiers has a name, each acts as an individual, and as he moves through the game with you he becomes an integral and important member of your team. You don't want him to die. However, at some point he might, and you know that he bit the dust as a direct consequence of your actions. This is harrowing stuff.

To complement the distress of losing some of your friends and colleagues is an almost funeral dirge. Here, the Sensible boys have managed to apply their golden touch, resulting in a sad, depressing, catchy and hummable tune. As for the main theme - War - we defy anybody to play it for a couple of hours and then not dream about it when they go to sleep.

Using tactics and strategies, your aim is to complete each of 24 missions using a team built from several hundred conscripts. It's almost like those really sad Police Academy films, where ordinary people of all shapes and sizes arrive at the boot camp and join up. They've all got the same abilities, despite their odd-sounding nickames (Lex, Hector, Elroy and the rest), so there's no particular bias.

Each mission contains between one and six stages, so in total you have over 60 levels to play through. Although the basis of each level is similar, there are subtle differences which mean that you need to employ a different strategy depending on the circumstances. Most levels have the same brief - wipe out the enemy - but there are other tasks which you have to complete on some levels before you can move on.

For example, you might have to rescue a civilian. If you shoot him by accident, or if he gets caught in the crossfire, you have to go back to the start of the level and try again. Or you might have to just destroy all the enemy buildings, and any enemy soldiers which bit the dust along the way are just plain unlucky. It's all fair in love and war, as they say, and because it seems there's an infinite number of enemy soldiers hanging around in each building you're unlikely to lose any sleep over casualties.

You might be wondering why you need strategies, if you mostly have to shoot things. Well, you see, some items you find in the levels can be quite, ah, temperamental to gunfire. If you begin a level with no grenades or rockets, but there are buildings to destroy, you can bet your life (er...) that there are rockets or grenades to be picked up. You can normally find them in little packing crates stacked outside the buildings. If they get even so much as scratched, they go off with a bang, rendering you helpless for the rest of the level. You see, no matter how much you shoot a building with your gun, you can't destroy it.

IF you do happen to get stuck, you can press Escape to try again - but sadly it doesn't magically resurrect any dead players, it just adds to your group from the vast number of conscripts waiting back at camp. If you're canny you can save your position before a particularly difficult mission, and then if you do happen to lose your favourite player you can simply load him back in. That won't seem as daft as it sounds when you play the game, because you go get attacked to certain key players who have done you proud in the previous mission. If they die, you feel really bad.

When Mega Lo Mania was first released on the ST about three years ago it was ground breaking - a god game which behaved more like a coin-op arcade gae. Other games such as Wizball and Wizkid also broke new ground in gameplay - in fact, the Sensible's only game which could be described as normal is Sensible Soccer, and that's their biggest selling game to date. Yet again, Sensible Soccer have come up with a stunning new concept in video gaming. Cannon Fodder manages to combine strategic wargaming with playability - it's a feast of blood which isn't overly graphic, portraying a nightmare scenario which is actually quite fun to get involved in.

It's also huge. The first even levels are easy, designed to get you used to the control before throwing you into the really hard stuff. An excellent design point is that the game introduces you to different aspects of the game gradually, so you don't run before you can walk, so to speak. On Mission Five, for instance, you get a little skidoo to play around in - beats walking, eh? You can fit as many men as you want inside, and not only can you accelerate and steer the thing around, you can also make jumps over ramps, Evel Knievel-style.

Later on, you get a small armoured gun turret, a jeep, a tank and a helicopter - each fitting in with its scenario, each with a part to play in the defeat of the enemy. Problem is, though, the enemy gets them too - and usually in greater numbers. You can spot an enemy vehicle a mile off, because of the flashing red light on top.

After Level Seven, things begin to get hairy. The enemy soldiers suddenly begin to run instead of walking; their guns seem to be more powerful, more of them carry rocket launchers. It's almost as if they see you coming, and they stocked up on arms. Don't be worried by the rocket launchers, by the way - they're only effective if they take you by surprise. If you stay alert, you find that running towards them (screaming "Aaaaargh!" if you like, to really get into the spirit of things) and firing madly usually gets the blighters.

So that's it. One of the best games ever on other machines, it's here on the ST, and it's wonderful. Yes, we know that Frontier was proclaimed as probably the best game of 1994, but Cannon Fodder pips it to the post.

It's a different type of game, as most Sensible games are, and it's a great testimony to the ability of the ST to carry great games. After last month's Goal! rant, I'm risking being branded a sycohant by applauding Virgin, because Sensible already know they can pat themselves on the back.

1. Fun and very playable.
2. Accurate wargame simulation.
3. Catchy sampled music.
4. Huge number of levels.

1. Accesses disk to restart the same level.