Cabal

"Simple, violent fun was never this... fun!"

Cabal is quite a simple shooter. The rules are simple: Move, shoot, and don’t get killed. If you break the rules, you usually die. Especially for that third one.

So, how can such a simplistic NES game be so entertaining? This, I do not know.

Cabal starts off by showing you the stages you will go through. Then, you enter the stage and enemies are pumped out in humongous swarms. It’s quite easy in the beginning, but the difficulty increases rapidly and quick. You’ll probably die a lot on your first time, and a lot more your second, but eventually you’ll get used to Cabal’s odd controls.

Because, you see, Cabal is a tad different from your typical “kill all enemies” game. There are barrels and uhm, barrels you hide behind until they are shot down. The lag time in between the barrels crumbling and you starting the level gives you a chance to fill up that long segmented bar that tells you how much you have killed. After that, you have to dodge enemy shots, or kill them before they fire, which is no easy task. Why?

Because of Cabal’s odd control scheme. When you move, so does the crosshair. I suppose this is more realistic, and even at times useful, but it has only annoyed me in my killing sprees. You hold down the firing button to stand still and shoot things, and you let got of it and tap it to fire a grenade. Very simple. If you press the button that makes you run as well as up and a direction, you roll, which makes you temporarily invincible (as far as I can tell). Very easy to use, but the crosshair quirk annoys me to no end.

Now, while on your happy bloodbath, eventually that bar fills up. And what happens? Your character does a happy victory dance into the next stage. When I first saw it, I laughed myself. It was simply the most entertaining sight in my life; my red soldier guy clasping his gun is victory as he danced off into the next stage.

Speaking of guns, they can upgrade. But, as far as I can tell, the upgrades don’t really do much, except make different sounds…

…Which the NES does not. Constantly throughout the game, a low-key song plays. I found it to not be annoying or boring, but surprisingly catchy. It didn’t really cover up the sound of my little machine gun firing off rounds and murdering enemy troops. It complimented the game.

The graphics did as well. Enemies were surprisingly well detailed (compared to other NES games…) and amused me. They first came out from the distance and moved closer (although their bullets were always the same flashing spheres), and the bosses were out-of-this-world. Who ever heard of a helicopter that fired evil spheres of death, a submarine that fired evil spheres of death, or an odd semi truck that created gun that fired out spheres of death? Truly, this game had no repetitions.

Well, actually, it didn’t. Although the game kept on using the same enemies, it always seemed different. The creators of this game were very creative, and this game entertained me when I was a child with an NES and entertains me as a teen with a computer. Truly, this game has aged like wine.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/04/03, Updated 03/04/03