Cabal

About Cabal

Cabal (1988) is TAD Corporation's over-the-shoulder shooting gallery in which commandos dodge, roll and shelter behind crumbling walls to level enemy bases, later famous for its home ports.

Cabal in Depth

One or two unnamed commandos attack several enemy military bases over five stages of four screens each. Seen from behind, each starts with three lives, a gun with unlimited ammunition and a limited stock of grenades, sheltering behind a protective wall that enemy fire gradually shatters. Players dodge bullets by running left or right, taking cover or dodge-rolling. A gauge at the bottom of the screen falls as enemies are killed and certain structures brought down; when it empties, the remaining buildings collapse and the stage is won. Destroyed objects sometimes release power-ups such as a very fast machine gun, an automatic shotgun with a wider spread, extra grenades or points.

The arcade cabinet used a trackball to move the character and the crosshairs, with dodge-rolls made by spinning the trackball at full speed; later boards switched to a joystick with an optional trackball. Its 3D perspective, with the character in the foreground and an over-the-shoulder view, resembles later third-person shooters. The character cannot move while firing, and moving drags the crosshairs too, so players must balance attack and defence, weighing increasingly risky dodges against hiding behind a wall that will not last, rather than relying on reflexes like run-and-gun games.

Making Cabal

TAD Corporation developed it, and it was published in 1988 by Taito in Japan, Fabtek in North America and Capcom in Europe. It was only a moderate arcade success, Game Machine ranking it eighth among Japan's table units for October 1988, and became better known through ports to PC, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Amiga and NES. Computer and Video Games' Clare Edgeley compared it favourably with Operation Wolf and Combat School, and Commodore User's Nick Kelly gave it seven out of ten.