Created article.
New page
''Alien Cabal'' is a 1997 first-person shooter published by QASoft and consisting of ten levels. Its distribution package also contains the "vedit" [[level editor]]. Although difficult to confirm, the game is believed to be built on a modified version of ''[[Doom II]]'', as [http://www.philscomments.com/about/ stated] by one of the game's testers, and the game features menus and details very similar to the ''Doom'' games.
==Plot==
<div class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; width: 254px">
'''Alien Cabal Levels'''
----
*'''Level 1 - The City'''
*'''Level 2 - Guard Station'''
*'''Level 3 - Robot Factory'''
*'''Level 4 - '''
*'''Level 5 - '''
*'''Level 6 - '''
*'''Level 7 - '''
*'''Level 8 - '''
*'''Level 9 - '''
*'''Level 10 - '''
</div>
Local media writes off a near doubling of UFO sightings over "the city" as a hoax by "overzealous UFO fanatics", only for a secret government investigation to discover a massive covert base, built following years of unfriendly aliens "studying mankind and earth's resources" in prelude to invasion. Fearing public reaction but needing an evacuation of the area, the public are told of a virus outbreak. However, this only causes the press to swarm the region surrounding the city. Unable to stage a military operation unnoticed, it is concluded that a single special operative must be sent to enter the underground complex, and destroy all alien life encountered. The game's levels mark the player's progression from the streets of the city into the bowels of the alien base.
==Gameplay==
Although designed for DOS, ''Alien Cabal'' runs without problems on Windows XP and can be ran through [[DOSBox]].
At the start of a new game, the player selects a "Skill" level:
*Walk in the park
*Let me at 'em
*Death wish
A game can be saved / loaded at any point during game play''';''' ''Alien Cabal'' provides six "Save" slots.
Although the player cannot modify ''Alien Cabal'''s controls, a simple "Help" screen clearly lists the control keys. A "jump" command does '''not''' exist. However, in some situations, the character can "walk through the air" from one platform to another platform if 1) the gap is small enough and 2) the character has a running start. By stepping on "half-height" items in the environment, the character can climb up to "full-height" items.
As additional upgrades upon the base ''[[Doom II]]'' [[Doom engine|engine]], the game features sloped floors, [[:wikipedia:Build engine#Room over room|tricked room-over-room]] and a variety of destructible items (as did ''[[Hacx]]'' and ''[[Hexen]]''), alike to the [[:wikipeida:Build engine|''Build'' engine]] games such as ''[[Duke Nukem 3D]]''. This is factored into the game's scoring system where, instead of just items collected, enemies killed and secrets found, player's were also rated based on the amount of object's destroyed. This rudimentary statistics screen is shown after the player completes a level, alike to the ''[[Doom]]'' games:
{|class="wikitable"
|-
|Kills||xxx%||percentage of enemies killed
|-
|Destruction||xxx%||percentage of environment (e.g. windows, etc.) destroyed
|-
|Items||xxx%||percentage of objects picked up
|-
|Secrets||xxx%||percentage of secret areas discovered
|}
The game environment includes objects (e.g. weapons, ammunition, keys, health kits, armor) that the player can pick up simply by walking over the object. The weapons include a [[pistol]], [[shotgun]], [[machine gun]], [[grenade]]s and a [[bazooka]]. Singularly, there is no melee weapon and the player is defenceless when out of ammunition. In fact, the normal 0th weapon slot is left empty, listed as "no weapon". Enemies include [[clone]]d [[G-Man (slang)|government men]], giant [[bees]], [[android]]s and the titular [[Little green men|aliens]]. Some enemies, such as robots, can only be killed using explosive weapons or exploding objects. The game does not include any [[Boss (video gaming)|bosses]].
''Alien Cabal'' has a few shortcomings:
*The player must use the "look up" and "look down" commands to adjust the weapon to a good position; a cross-hair is trigged by the F2 key
*"Mouse look" only on the horizontal axis (i.e. the player cannot look up and down with the mouse); mouse sensitivity can be adjusted
*Very weak "Map Mode", which lacks a representation of the player's exact location
*Enemies seem to damage the player's character from a further distance than vice versa
*Occasional crashes (but ''Alien Cabal'' is very playable)
*No in-game music and no audio or visual feedback for locked doors
*Comparatively boxy level designs
==External links==
*[https://www.dropbox.com/s/czri1vvt3w8nfkn/Alien%20Cabal%201%20%281997%29%28Qasoft%29.torrent Torrent for Alien Cabal]
*[http://archive.org/details/AlienCabal_1020 Alien Cabal for downloading from "Internet Archive"]
*[http://www.emuparadise.me/Abandonware_Games/Alien_Cabal_1_%281997%29%28Qasoft%29/92330 Alien Cabal (Release ver. 1.2 download) on Emuparadise]
[[Category:Games]]