Cannon Fodder
1993 - Sensible Software
"War!" - the most controversial loading screen in Amiga history. Richard Joseph and Jon Hare created an anti-war anthem that made headlines before the game shipped.
Richard Joseph was a British composer and audio director whose work defined the sound of Amiga-era gaming. From 1986 to 2007, he scored more than 25 titles for Palace Software, The Bitmap Brothers, Sensible Software, and Elixir Studios - a career spanning four studios and three decades of game development.
Trained at the City of Manchester's music conservatoire and experienced as a session musician with Shakatak, Richard brought a professional musician's rigour to an industry that was still learning what game audio could mean. The results - Barbarian's atmospheric C64 score, Speedball 2's kinetic Amiga soundtrack, the haunting beauty of Gods, the politically charged "War!" of Cannon Fodder, and the interactive marvel of The Chaos Engine - remain among the most celebrated in the history of British game music.
He died on 4 March 2007. The Remix64 community honoured him with a charity tribute album, proceeds donated to Macmillan Nurses. BAFTA acknowledged his contribution to the medium he helped define.