Cabal is a third-person, war-based shooter developed by TAD Corporation and distributed into arcades by Taito in Japan, by Fabtek in North America and by Capcom in Europe, in 1988.

The original cabinet featured trackball controls for two players, who could play the game cooperatively. Each controlled a commando on a mission to destroy a series of enemy bases. The commandos can shoot a variety of weapons (which can be changed by collecting gun power-ups dropped by defeated enemies), can throw grenades, and can dodge enemy fire by rolling.

Players must eradicate a certain number of enemies in each section, indicated by the ‘enemy’ bar at the bottom of the screen. You can take cover behind walls, although these are destructible and only last for so long. Bonus points can also be earned by destroying buildings.

Each of the five levels has four sub-stages, then a boss battle at the end, and as you progress the difficulty increases. Complete a stage and the commandos do a silly dance up the screen, while a jolly tune plays, which is quite funny. Boss battles in particular are pretty hard due to the sheer amount of incoming fire (which you’re supposed to clear with grenades in order to create a window of safety, which is not easy).

The graphics in Cabal aren’t great, but the gameplay is reasonably compelling and enjoyable – especially two-player.

Home computer ports were released for a number of home systems by Ocean Software in 1989. An NES version was released in 1990 by Milton Bradley.

More: Cabal on Wikipedia