A 'cabal', as any fule
kno, is a secret plot, esp. A
political one. Which is probably
why this game is called Cabal,
because it features you in the role of a
mega-hero sent out to foil a terrorist plan by
blowing the little beggars away. In other
words - dakkadakkadakka splat argh ar'm
hit neow blam and so on.
Operation Wolf is obviously the inspiration
behind
Cabal, although the new game builds
heavily on the original and requires a more subtle
playing technique. Rather than viewing the
battlefield through a scrolling window, you see it
one screen at a time, if you see what I mean. No?
Sigh.
Cabal consists of 20 screens, split up into five
levels of four screens each. (The levels multiload on
48K.) Before you can move on to the next screen
you must blow away a certain number of baddies,
and much of the scenery as well if you want to. The
computer then flips you to the next screen where
you must do much the same thing. And so on. At the
end of each level there's a horrid big baddy which
must be knocked out before you can progress.
Other differences are that instead of merely
moving your gunsight around and shooting things
you've got to keep an eye on your little guy at the
bottom of the screen. Every so often you have to
stop shooting and move him out of the way of the
bullets, grenades, bombs and stuff that are hurled at
him by the enemy. The way it works is that when
you hold down fire and move the joystick the
gunsight moves and the bloke stands still, and when
you're not pressing fire the chap wanders around
from left to right. You'll find you'll need to do about
half and half. There are also grenades and add-on
weapons to collect (a machine gun, which fires
much faster than the usual one and clears the whole
screen in about three seconds, and a bazooka which
marmalises vast chunks of the enemy with one
shot). The scenery acts as cover which either you or
the terrorists can hide behind until it gets
'crumbled'.
The game follows the coin-op original extremely
closely, although the graphics are more cartoony,
Spectrumy (which figures) and nicer I think. Just
about everything from the coin-op is here, including
the lethal helicopters which hover above you
dealing death and the massive end-of-level baddies
which are highly imaginative and very tough to deal
with. It also plays just like the original - tough, but
not so hard that you get suck on the first level for
ages.
Cabal is without a doubt (not even a teeny little
one) one of the finest conversions I've ever seen. It
recreates the coin-op's atmosphere of total death
and destruction perfectly, making it one of the
ultimate Speccy shoot-'em-ups. It's miles better
than
Op Wolf, light years in fact, parsecs almost. It's
great.
THE LEVELS
There are five levels of four
screens each. A nice touch is that
you can see the next screen on
the horizon if you look closely.
LEVEL ONE: First blast your way through an
occupied village, then enter and
raze to the ground an enemy
airbase. Then a sort of helicopter
thing swoops down and needs to
be taken apart.
LEVEL TWO: This takes you across a lake,
which is full of baddies of course,
then up a beach, through the
jungle and into a marine base
where divers pop up and down
shooting at you. A submarine
then surfaces, just asking to be
returned to the murky depths
from whence it came.
LEVEL THREE: Blow your way through the docks,
where cranes and buildings can
be shattered and mangled. Then
you'll come across a ship
teeming with terrorists. Nuke it!
The end-of-level nasty then
moves in - and boy, it's a toughie.
LEVEL FOUR: Trampling through the woods you
come across a ruined town.
Billions of baddies appear, so
show them no mercy. The grand
finale takes the form of a series of
guns which pop up, unleashing
streams of lead, and then pop
down again.
LEVEL FIVE: Clamber up the mountains to
another village, battle through it
and you'll come across a heavily
guarded enemy base, which is no
fun at all. Save your grenades up
for the awesomely tricky baddy at
the end.
Programmer's Corner
Cabal on the Speccy comes from the highly potent Special FX.
The coding is by Jimmy Bagley, responsible (although perhaps that's not quite the right word) for
Red Heat, Road Runner and loads of other biggies, and the graphics were done by
Charles Davies who also did the same job for Batman. If you can find the right combination
of keys to press on the title page there's a secret and rather fnar-worthy bonus screen!
| Arcade version screenshot... |

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| Ratings given by other magazines |
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