Operation Wolf

The Good
Probably the earliest hit of the genre, Operation Wolf is THE original rail shooter. A cult hit that garnered a modest success when released on the arcades with those plastic little uzis as controllers.

The premise behind the game is as simple as you'd guess, bad guys are doing bad stuff!! Go! Kill!! ARRRR!!! Yes, that's what we like anyway so why bother with anything else? Perfect to kill time and relieve some stress by mindlessly cleaning the world of central-american drug dealers, islamic terrorists and all sorts of paramilitary evils. In all, a perfect shooting gallery game, with all the features that would become classics of the genre like the missile/knife deflection via gunfire, the idiotic hostages/civilians that have no better idea than to run right in the middle of your line of fire, and "missions" that boil down to shooting the hell out of everything that dares to enter the screen as it scrolls around the different locations that make up the game. The enemies appear as nice looking bitmaps that usually go down with a shot or two of your two available weapons: the usual main shooter, an UZI and a high-powered grenade. The interesting addition to the gameplay comes in the form of finite ammo for both of your weapons, which forces you to be on the lookout for ammo bonuses as well as the usual health power-ups.

Additionally the port to DOS was quite good, keeping all of the action-loaded gameplay and it's graphics, which look about the same as in the arcades except for the gigantic status bar that eats up almost a quarter of the screen.

The Bad
The sound got horribly botched, I remember digitized samples as well as much more thumping sfx instead of the wimpy bleeps present in the DOS port, though those later may have been my arcade memories acting up.

Aside from that there's nothing else that you can object against Operation Wolf except the fact that it's really a dumb and simple 80's rail shooter, it gets old really fast and you could easily find something better to do with your time than playing it. After all it's the videogame equivalent of (and was inspired by) those cheesy "exotic" action movies of the 80's like Rambo 2 or the Delta Force series, were a one-man-army (usually Chuck Norris, Micheal Dudikoff, Lorenzo Lamas, etc.) shoots and kills dozens of colombian/vietnamese bad guys in mock jungles that look more like someone's backyard with a couple of shacks thrown in...well, you get the picture. They are a funny diversion if there's absolutely nothing else in the entire world for you to do.

The Bottom Line
A good port of a classic of the rail-shooting genre. I leave it up to you to figure out if that's a good thing or not. For what it counts Operation Wolf delivers the same non stop action that made it such a hit in the arcades and while that isn't enough to get a nomination for "Best game ever" it still makes for a funny arcade diversion, you know, in a "Chuck-Norris-vs-5000-Colombians" kinda way.

The Good
Killing people and blowing stuff up. I guess thats the premise of this game. There are innocents to kill and lots of vehicles to destory. Get those silly medics! What are they doing in the crossfire anyway!?

The Bad
Two weapons, machine gun and grenades. All there really is to do is watch your ammo levels and after a while all you have to do is memorize when a helicopter or tank is going to come through and your ready. The game is static and linear. Don't expect too many suprises. Only 6 levels? Come on.

The Bottom Line
An exactly replica of the arcade version. The only difference is you are using a controller instead of a mounted uzi. For this reason alone, I say go with the arcade game. At least there I feel like Rambo!

The Good
Taito is known to bring out classic arcade games, but in 1987, they decided to do something different. They decided to focus on shooting games rather than just creating platform games. Their first attempt was Operation Wolf, and what a fine game this is. The deal is you are a pre-WWII soldier, and you must get through six locations like the communication setup, jungle, powder magazine, concentration camp, and airport. Each one of the locations has a mission. For example, in the communication setup, you have to cut off all communication between the enemy; in the jungle, you have to extract information about the location of the concentration camp; and in the powder magazine, you have to stock up on ammunition.

But there are various enemies that get into the line of fire and prevent you from completing your mission by either shooting, or throwing sokmething at you, like knives and grenades. These enemies include other soldiers, helicopters, boats, and tanks. Some enemies, like the helicopters and tanks, take more than a couple of hits to go down, so make sure that you use your supply of ammunition and rocket bombs wisely. Speaking of supplies, you can stock up on ammunition and rocket bombs by shooting things in the background like barrels and crates. You can also stock up by shooting animals like dogs and cats. And by shooting a coconut tree that has a coconut on it, shooting a falling coconut will increase your score by 5000 points.

Also, you have an energy bar that depletes each time you're hit, and this bar will flash red if you are nearly out of energy. Once your energy is depleted, the game is over. If you're lucky, you can pick up some sort of energy boost that will add five points to the indicator. At the start of a new game you are seen parachuting down to an island and the game asks you to rescue hostages. These hostages include the two nurses, a young boy, and a woman getting around in her knickers. The hostages are not in any danger, since just about each enemy tries to kill you anyway, but it is in your best interest to avoid shooting hostages on purpose.

However, on the last two levels of the game, you have hostages in gray clothing suddenly appear on the screen and make their way to the other side. More often than not, behind them is a guy with a knife in his hand, attempting to get close enough to the hostage and stab him in the back. You must shoot this guy before he does this. Failing to save all hostages, especially in the last level, will result in the mayor telling you you've failed your mission at the end of the game. However, when you managed to save all of them, the mayor will thank you for your efforts.

The sound and music are excellent in the game, even though, unlike 1st-person shooters, you don't have music to listen to while you continue to kill enemies. The sound is through Adlib only. Graphics are not bad either. Shooters like this have the kind of gameplay that won't bore you, especially when you had a bad day. You can worry about nothing else and shoot your enemies as if they are real people.

The Bad
The coin-op version of Operation Wolf is much better than the versions for various formats out there, particularly the NES and Sega Master System versions. It has better sound. The hostages speak and the enemies grunt when they are hit. It has much better graphics than the rest.

The only thing the coin-op version is missing from its counterparts is the boss at the end of the jungle, who is holding a local hostage and shooting you at the same time. There is also three helicopters that try to shoot you down somewhere between the third and fourth levels, that's also missing in tbe coin-op version. If you would like to play this version, I suggest that you download a copy of MAME, as well as a ROM image of the game.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is: if you like shooters, get this game. And if you've completed the game and really enjoyed it, then perhaps you'll have a go at Operation Thunderbolt, a game that has a real story behind it, not just killing soldiers and rescuing hostages. ****