Ed Oscuro
12-11-2005, 06:46 PM
Both are legendary examples by developer TAD (an acronym for something or other) of one of my favorite genres, the Dynamite Duke/G.I. Joe style shooter. While it does lack the scrolling screen of Taito's Operation Wolf from a year earlier, Cabal nevertheless seems more impressive technically than Operation Wolf thanks to some really complex stages in which you can destroy nearly everything. It introduced the legendary level-end dance, which is worth the price of admission all by itself.
The controls are simple but potentially awkward: your character and aimpoint are both tied to the joystick, so when you move the joystick your character runs and the aimpoint moves as well, unless you've got the fire button held down in which case he'll stay put and sweep the area with fire. It's antiquated today, but still can make for an intriguing game.
Cabal set itself apart from the crowd by ditching scrolling screens for a single screen with destructible elements and lots and lots of graphics. Tanks drive by, helicopters strafe your position, and jets divebomb you. It doesn't look as good as Dynamite Duke (in my opinion - still quite good), but (outside cutscenes) it looks better than Operation Wolf.
One of the things that I feel was most improved in the sequel were the destructible elements. They simply look better going down, as some stuff in Cabal simply had a thin layer of gray cracks added before they were collapsed, and many walls simply collapsed straight downwards.
Great efforts both. They added a character to watch out for, and in this way this type of game is closer to the modern first person shooter than most gun games.
Other standouts in the "player + gun" game:
Alligator Hunt (obscure, presumably rare Spanish release from '95)
Dynamite Duke (awesome Cabal style game with brawler elements)
GI Joe (by Konami; the aimpoint is fixed on the horizontal axis to your player's location - quite handy)
Operation Wolf (Taito's game potentially inspired TAD's release; while it's a standard scrolling lightgun game it was one of the first to make a big splash on the market, being ported everywhere from the Sinclair Spectrum to, eventually, the FM Towns).
The controls are simple but potentially awkward: your character and aimpoint are both tied to the joystick, so when you move the joystick your character runs and the aimpoint moves as well, unless you've got the fire button held down in which case he'll stay put and sweep the area with fire. It's antiquated today, but still can make for an intriguing game.
Cabal set itself apart from the crowd by ditching scrolling screens for a single screen with destructible elements and lots and lots of graphics. Tanks drive by, helicopters strafe your position, and jets divebomb you. It doesn't look as good as Dynamite Duke (in my opinion - still quite good), but (outside cutscenes) it looks better than Operation Wolf.
One of the things that I feel was most improved in the sequel were the destructible elements. They simply look better going down, as some stuff in Cabal simply had a thin layer of gray cracks added before they were collapsed, and many walls simply collapsed straight downwards.
Great efforts both. They added a character to watch out for, and in this way this type of game is closer to the modern first person shooter than most gun games.
Other standouts in the "player + gun" game:
Alligator Hunt (obscure, presumably rare Spanish release from '95)
Dynamite Duke (awesome Cabal style game with brawler elements)
GI Joe (by Konami; the aimpoint is fixed on the horizontal axis to your player's location - quite handy)
Operation Wolf (Taito's game potentially inspired TAD's release; while it's a standard scrolling lightgun game it was one of the first to make a big splash on the market, being ported everywhere from the Sinclair Spectrum to, eventually, the FM Towns).