Cabal (video game)

Cabal
Japanese arcade flyer
Developer(s)	TAD Corporation
Publisher(s)	JP: Taito NA: Fabtek EU: Capcom[1]
Composer(s)	David Wise (NES)
Platform(s)	Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, C64, ZX Spectrum, MS-DOS, NES
Release	JP: July 25, 1988[3] EU: September 1988[2] NA: October 1988[4]
Genre(s)	Shooting gallery
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Cabal (カベール, Kabēru) is a 1988 arcade shooter video game originally developed by TAD Corporation and published in Japan by Taito, in North America by Fabtek^[5] and in Europe by Capcom.^[1] In the game, the player controls a commando, viewed from behind, trying to destroy various enemy military bases.^[6] The game was innovative for the era, but only a mild success in the arcades, and became better known for its various home conversions.^[5]

Cabal has one-player and two-player-simultaneous modes of gameplay. Each player assumes the role of an unnamed commando trying to destroy several enemy military bases. There are 5 stages with four screens each. The player starts with a stock of three lives and uses a gun with limitless ammunition and a fixed number of grenades to fend off enemy troops and attack the base. The commando is seen from behind and starts behind a protective wall which can be damaged and shattered by enemy fire. To stay alive, the player needs to avoid enemy bullets by running left or right, hiding behind cover, or using a dodge-roll. An enemy gauge at the bottom of the screen depletes as foes are destroyed and certain structures (which collapse rather than shatter) are brought down. When the enemy gauge is emptied, the level is successfully completed, all of the remaining buildings onscreen collapse, and the player progresses to the next stage. If a player is killed, he is immediately revived at the cost of one life or the game ends if they have no lives remaining. Boss fights, however, restart from the beginning if the only remaining player dies.

From time to time, power-ups are released from objects destroyed onscreen. Some power-ups give special weapons such as an extremely fast-firing machine gun or an automatic shotgun with a lower firing rate and larger area of effect. Others grant extra grenades or additional points.

The arcade cabinet is a standard upright cabinet.^[5] Each player uses a trackball to move their character from side to side and move the crosshairs about the screen. On later board revisions, a joystick was installed instead^[5] with an optional sub-PCB for use with a trackball. With a trackball, dodge-rolling is done by pushing the trackball to maximum speed.

Cabal was somewhat innovative in that it featured a 3D perspective in which the player character was situated in the foreground with an over-the-shoulder camera view, similar to modern third-person shooters. Players cannot move the character while firing (holding down the fire button gives players control of the aiming cursor), and when moving the character to avoid incoming bullets, the aiming cursor moves along in tandem. This creates the need for a careful balance between offensive and defensive tactics, separating Cabal from run-and-gun shooters which relied more on reflexes. Advanced gameplay involves destructible asset management in balancing dodging (which gets riskier as the number of enemy projectiles on screen increases) with the safer alternative of taking cover behind a protective but limited durability wall.

Cabal was ported to several home computers of the era, including the DOS computers, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga. It was also ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System console by Rare. A version for the Atari Lynx was previewed and even slated to be published in April 1992, but was never released by Fabtek.^[7]

When converting the game to the Nintendo Entertainment System, Rare were given a Cabal cabinet but did not have access to the game's source code, so they had to play the game over and over and redraw the graphics from memory.^[8] To accommodate the many layers and sprites of the arcade game, programmer Anthony Ball used a common coding trick: swapping sprites from left to right every other frame. This has the negative side effect of causing the sprites to flicker when they reach the console's limit of eight per line, but Ball, like many programmers of the era, found this an acceptable trade-off for including all the game's content, and in a 2016 interview he said he is happy with the quality of the conversion.^[8]

Cabal was followed in 1990 by Blood Bros., though the sequel had a western theme as opposed to Cabal's Vietnam-era theme.^[5]

In Japan, Game Machine listed Cabal on their November 1, 1988, issue as being the eighth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.^[9]

The arcade version was reviewed by Clare Edgeley in Computer and Video Games magazine. She gave it a positive review, while comparing it favorably with Operation Wolf (1987) and Combat School (1987).^[2] Nick Kelly of Commodore User rated Cabal seven out of ten, comparing it favorably with Gryzor (1987) and Devastators (1988).^[1]

The ZX Spectrum version won the award for best advert of the year according to the readers of Crash.^[10]

The game's success inspired many Cabal clones, such as NAM-1975 (1990) and Wild Guns (1994).^[5][11]

• Shootout, developed by TAD Corporation's related company Data East three years before Cabal.

• Rareware page
• Cabal at the Killer List of Videogames
• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.^[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".^[2] This lengthy approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.^[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.^[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.^[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.^[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.^[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.^[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.^[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.^[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).^[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,^[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.^[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.^[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.^[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.^[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.^[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.^[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.^[17]

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

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• Cabal at SpectrumComputing.co.uk
• arcade history page
• Cabal compared to its 2002 spiritual successor, Gamshara

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