A genre mixing Shoot them Up and Run'n'Gun surfaces in 1988 with Cabal: the player controls a character moving laterally at the bottom of the screen, in a way like in Space Invaders. Player also controls a sight that can be moved with the joystick, independently or simultaneously with the hero. Game is about cleaning stages by killing enemies and destroying vehicles or infrastructures. Two years later, Video System and SNK offer their own interpretations in this new style: Nam-1975, the first game released for the Neo Geo, and Spinal Breakers running on a traditional 68k-based. SNK's machine has a slight advantage over the CPU speed. The resolution is 352x240 for Spinal Breakers against 320x224 for Nam-1975. Displayable colors, the Neo Geo takes a big advantage with 4096 against 256. Both systems use exactly the same sound chip, the excellent Yamaha 2610 running at 8 Mhz. Finally, Taito's game weighs about 35 Mb, against 46 Mb.

The choice of view is the same in both apps, modeled on Cabal's "third person" standard. However, Nam-1975 offers farthest camera with smaller characters, allowing a greater range and a wider viewing angle. For Spinal Breakers, it's exactly the opposite: we are much "closer" from our heroes, and these are very big-sized, as for the enemies. A black band displaying the "dashboard" occupies the bottom of the screen, reducing somewhat the playing screen. The stages are varied as are enemies, but it's not beautiful, nor detailed, and most importantly, all sorely lacking in color. SNK's soft is far better, even if the sprites are smaller, they are better designed and finest, the backgrounds are far more beautiful and the color palette used copiously.

Nam-1975    80                                 62    Spinal Breakers

Nam-1975 still looks awesome concerning its animation. The movements of heroes and enemies are beautifully decomposed, with a really impressive level of detail for a set of 90'. For example, there are at least five or six ways to die: a grenade, flamethrower, fire, toxic gas, decay... And what about the sometimes daunting Boss, the impressive number of sprites on the screen -sometimes hundreds-with enemy fire everywhere, without ever any slowdown during the action! Great job. Spinal Breakers is clearly not as strong, it is undeniable: the pace is slower, decomposition more basic and the postures of our heroes relatively limited. A new win for the SNK's game !

Nam-1975    91                                 72    Spinal Breakers

As we saw earlier in this comparison, our two rivals use exactly the same sound hardware: the YM2610. Well, the least we can say is that this does not get along! The soundtrack of Spinal Breakers is not only poor, but totally botched. Themes, particularly innocuous, are drowned out the sound effects of gunfire, not themselves especially well digitized. The whole thing is a hardly digestible soup, which we don't notice anymore after a few minutes. Conversely, Nam-1975 is brilliant: catchy themes sometimes military, sometimes epic, fitting perfectly the action... while the sounds of shooting, explosions, flame throwers are remarkable. The digits vocal punctuating the action and cutscenes are high quality, and scale to give a beautiful game, outclassing every other competitor back in 1990.

Nam-1975    84                                 47    Spinal Breakers

Cooperative play for the two game, it's the bare minimum. Six levels for Nam-1975, seven for Spinal Breakers, it's not bad. The game from SNK is a bit longer than its opponent but also more difficult: levels are increasingly hard, and the final Boss must be defeated in one life only, good luck! In terms of duration, it's slightly longer. Video System's game is relatively easy, although the large size of the characters makes inevitable the use of several credits, as our characters are pretty vulnerable. Moreover, the weapons system, hidden bonuses and cooperative play are more interesting in Nam-1975, and provides it a solid lead on the replay value, to a competitor both short and unattractive when finished.

Nam-1975    79                                 52    Spinal Breakers

The large size of the heroes in Spinal Breakers makes it very difficult to dodge. The roll (B) doesn't have you invincible when performed. The avoidance strategies are poor, since most of evasive actions are ineffective: our characters move slowly and can't run! In the exercise of anticipation, the "perfect" remains utopian. The shot is fired with A, and C delivers the bombs, available in limited stock. Sights respond well, but the game features only the basic weapon and bombs. It's summarizing to snipe everything that moves by cashing enemy bullets until you die, without your dexterity helping any time. With Nam-1975, the things are different. Also using three buttons (A=fire, B=grenade, C=run), you can perform an escape roll during which player is invincible, triggered by holding down-right or down-left and pressing C. Various weapons can be picked during the game, like uzi, flamethrower, fragmentation grenade or missile launcher. There is also the double aim to recover over the levels, and better, a beautiful blonde to deliver: she then comes then to help you until you die. Heroes are much smaller than in Spinal Breakers, allowing more movement on the playground, and more opportunities for evasion and anticipation. The two-players game is all the more clear. The difficulty rises crescendo, and unlike Taito's soft, technique pays off: with a little training, players can improve and reach advanced levels of the game with a single credit.

Nam-1975    89                                 56    Spinal Breakers

A real beating is inflicted to Spinal Breakers in this match by Nam-1975. It doesn't just wins every round, but pay the luxury to fool its opponent on most chapters. Programmed on supports close in terms of power and not showing a big difference on rom sizes, one would have expected more competition, especially from an editor such as Video System. Nam-1975 is a jewel for the Neo Geo in 1990, outperforming not only Spinal Breakers, but also most games of this genre released at this time.