Alien Cabal

Alien Cabal
Alien Cabal's box front cover
Developer(s)	QASoft
Programmer(s)	Software Engineering Greg Taylor Level Design Chris Kendall Greg Taylor Phillip McNeely
Artist(s)	Graphics Design Chris Kendall 3D Character Design John Kubasco
Composer(s)	Sound Effects Richard Cruz, Jr. Chris Kendall Music Richard Cruz, Jr.
Engine	Doom II engine (modified) [1]
Platform(s)	MS-DOS Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	October 1997
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player

Alien Cabal is a 1997 first-person shooter. The game's distribution package also contains a level editor called VEdit.

Plot

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

The gameplay is similar to Doom. The player wanders through various rooms and corridors, shooting enemies and collecting weapons, health kits and keycards. The objective of each level is to reach the exit, which is marked by pyramid symbol reminiscent of the Illuminati. Upon completing a level, various statistics are displayed, such as the percentage of enemies killed and percentage of objects (e.g. windows) destroyed.

The player's five weapons include a pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenades and a bazooka. Enemies include cloned government men, giant bees, androids, and the titular aliens. The game's ten levels range from outdoor cities to meat processing plants.

One unusual aspect of the gameplay is that the game does not feature 360 degree mouse look, nor does it make use of any auto-aim mechanism, requiring the player to aim up and down using the keyboard.

Despite featuring menu-screen music and a wide variety of sound effects, the game does not feature any in-game music.

Although the game was originally designed for MS-DOS, Alien Cabal can be run on modern versions of Windows with the DOSBox emulator.

References