CABAL

     With games like Cabal in our childhoods, it's no wonder the the military recruiting office had to resort to stalking me in the parking lot at work in high school. Cabal is the missing link between carnival duck shooting games and those light gun games at the arcade where two guys hop around in front of a big screen TV and pretending to be police officers. We had that game when we were younger, except it involved plugging in the NES's Zapper and plugging idly away at Barney, Big Bird, and all their well-meaning felt-skinned ilk. And with a gallon of Mountain Dew in my bloodstream, I imagine the whole thing would have looked like Cabal if I could have actually seen myself from outside. So, before delving deeper into my childhood psychoses and increasing my desire to jump back in time and tease my smaller, weaker self, let's delve deeper into Cabal.

     Cabal is a game for one or two dangerous loners to act out vaporizing a small area of enemy territory. By the way, if you have a Player 2, you're not a very good dangerous loner. Wearing fatigues seems to enhance the experience too. Fortunately since I DO own a pair of camoflague shorts and only have one controller plugged in. (Because frankly, few things are more depressing than a second controller that gets plugged in but never used.)

     Our blue jumpsuited hero, who for the sake of discussion I'll call Harvey, is on a mission in Vietnam, Cuba South Carolina, or some other such place. His unit was there mostly as a patrol and occupation force, but ol' Harvey was hankering for action. The other troops were content to threaten shopkeeps and molest the locals, but Harv wanted something more. One of his teammates joked, "Hey, Harv, why don't you just take a rifle and some grenades and take over the whole place?"

     Harvey had a habit of taking things literally, as his head was about a quarter-turn loose. So he took his assault rifle, his trusty magic +1 Ammo Clip of Infinite Rounds, and ran willy-nilly into enemy territory. After a brief skirmish with about fifty armed troops, some random tanks, and a barn, the whole place was blasted to the ground. It was like something out of a bad video game- as the fiftieth man fell, so did all the others and the buildings. To a bizarre fanfare, Harvey launched into a bizarre dance and dashed off into the sunset, laughing like a lunatic.

     Next, Harvey vented his misguided childhood Fruedian energy against a fortified area of some kind. The enemy sent jeeps, tanks, and a seemingly endless supply of troops in a predictable pattern. They even managed to kill him a few times, but he simply had too many quarters in his pocket to die! The base in shambles, Harv went into his mindless puppet dance once more and charged the gates of the airfield.

     The enemy called in an airstrike! But the bombs only made him madder! Two and a half more scores of enemy troops, annihalated in a flurry of gunfire after Harvey picked up a blue tile with an M-16 painted on the side. Finally, as the soundtrack changed and the sky darkened slightly, the Oscar Meyer gunship began raining red spherical bombs at him as he ran side to side, chucking grenades and lead. It was a grueling battle, but Harvey's years of high school football paid off when he ran a reverse play and ran at ten times normal speed.

     Wait, I started thinking about John Elway's Football for no reason.

     The next stage takes Harvey to a swamp or a beach or something. The SCUBA men from Bayou Billy have signed on with the enemy and take pot shots at him from the water. This is a change of pace from the other stages because now he was destroying trees and natural cover instead of fences and whatnot.

     I think the moral to the story is one man can make a difference if he's bloodthirsty and crazy enough. Harvey ultimately conquered the entire enemy country in about an hour. His squadmates had this to say when reached for comment:

     "Huh?"

-MANNA

The goofy-ass grin kind of undermines the menace of the demon skull.

I'VE GOT THE MUSIC IN ME! SHOOT SHOOT REV-O-LUTION!

...those BASTARDS! They got Player Two! He never even saw it coming. He got zapped while zipping.