As with many of these ‘Arnie Schwarzenegger/Green Beret chappie yomps across enemy terrain’ style blast-’em-up’s the plot is simple: a foreign country is causing a bit of aggro, and wanting to avoid full-scale war our lad is sent in to dish out death and mayhem and destroy the enemy from within.
Armed with a gun (supplied with unlimited ammo), and a very limited supply of grenades to take out tanks, choppers, walls and groups of people, he fights his way across twenty single screen levels. Our hero moves left and right across screen, the gun and grenades are aimed with a cursor. Blasting larger targets occasionally awards icons which when collected bestow bonus points or more powerful weapons (although these are lost when you die).
With each enemy killed a bar gradually fills with red, and when it is full the current level ends, and you can carry on and be nasty to another screen full of enemy soldiers. The action in Cabal isn’t fast enough to watch the groups of soldiers blasting at you on one side of the screen whilst grenading a tank on the other. Bricks and mortar provide a certain amount of protection against the blood thirsty hordes. Ocean don’t pretend that this game is anything but an Operation Wolf clone, but if you like the idea of Operation Thunderbolt, make sure you get this one too.
MARK — 90%
