Cabal

Arcade 1988 Dos Dosbox Capcom Vertical shooter

An almost forgotten arcade gem

For a trip down memory lane, fire up this little old-school gem, a military shooter from the Capcom stable that provides some simple but enjoyably macho shooting action. It's a fixed screen shooter that is a sort of combination of Space Invaders, Commando and Operation Wolf and where players controls an agile little soldier as he sprints around blowing merry hell out a wide assortment of enemies out to take him down. This array of bad guys is one of the game's main points of interest and everything from your common foot soldier to tanks, helicopters and even submarines will attempt to pound you into a greasy stain throughout its five levels. There's a fair bit of cover to duck and dodge around as you run across the bottom of the screen, but most of it can be blown up so make sure you keep on the move otherwise it will be curtains for you. You can grab a few handy extra weapons like machine guns and shotguns to make your job easier, while buildings can be blown up to help rack up those points even faster. Cabal is pretty simple stuff but it's no less enjoyable for this fact so if you need some old-school arcade thrills, it does the job admirably. It's equally simple in terms of visuals, but it's got plenty of retro charm with its chunky sprites and cool environments, while sound is minimalist but also kind of effective. Games like Ikari Warriors might have grabbed most of the limelight back in the day, but if you dig out Cabal you'll find it's got a similar level of appeal, so check it out and get blasting!

Fixed screen arcade shooter with subpar graphics

Cabal got ported on to the DOS platform from its original cabinet beginnings, where it was the kind of fixed screen arcade shooter, where you control your character sideways and make use of the fixed scenery areas to dodge bullets, while at the same time you try to position your crosshair and kill as many enemies as possible.A true arcade style game, the DOS version was ported at the graphical standards of EGA era. This was done with a very poor selection of colors and also with very crudely designed enemies and sceneries. This can make the game very hard to keep track of, since the enemy projectiles ca at times blend in with the scenery making dodging harder than intended. While the game had an ulterior fix, making it run on 256 colors at VGA resolutions, the 1988 version is pretty ugly, so this particular version is not at all the one to go for. Rather try to source a more recent one because with the correct graphics the game is really addictive and cool to play. Also, to engage in the experience even more, play the game with a joystick. It's tons more fun to play that way.

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