Operation Wolf

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Operation Wolf
Developer(s)	Taito
Publisher(s)	Taito
Release date(s)	1987
Genre(s)	Shooting gallery
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, PC (DOS, Windows), NES, MSX, Sega Master System, PlayStation 2, TurboGrafx-16, Xbox, ZX Spectrum
Input	Positional gun with trigger, 2 Buttons
Arcade cabinet	Upright
Arcade CPU(s)	MC68000 (@ 12 MHz) Z80 (@ 4 MHz)
Arcade sound system(s)	YM2151 (@ 4 MHz) (2x) MSM5205 (@ 384 kHz)
Arcade display	Raster, 320 x 240 pixels (Horizontal), 8192 colors

Operation Wolf is a one-player shooter arcade game made by Taito in 1987. It spawned three sequels: Operation Thunderbolt (1988), Operation Wolf 3 (1994) and Operation Tiger (1998).

Contents 1 Description 2 Ports 3 Endings 4 Miscellaneous 5 External links

[edit] Description

The object of the game is to rescue the five hostages in the concentration camp. The game is divided into six stages: Communication Setup, Jungle, Village, Powder Magazine, Concentration Camp, and Airport. Completion of each stage advances the story. For example, upon completing the Jungle stage, an enemy leader is interrogated and the location of the enemy's concentration camp is found. This was one of the first shooter games to feature a storyline, and it had some similarities to a real special operations missions.

The objectives were as follows:

• Communications - Destroy the enemy communications unit in order to isolate them. Do not let them call for help.
• Jungle - Enemy forces have discovered your location. You are to repel the ambush, but avoid collateral damage as civilians are in the jungle as well. The climax of the stage involves an enemy soldier holding a woman hostage by threatening to shoot her. You capture the squad leader and learn of the concentration camp's location.
• Village - Enemy forces are in control of a village that is presumably unsympathetic. Your mission is to attack the enemy forces and cause them to retreat from occupying the village. Successfully completing the stage means the villagers perform medical treatment on you and replenish your health as a reward.
• Ammunition dump - The mission is to destroy the ammunition dump in order to starve the enemy of firepower. You do so at the the end of the stage, but not before consficating grenades and clips of ammunition for yourself.
• Concentration camp - Eliminate the enemy forces guarding the camp in order to permit the hostages to escape. In addition to being careful to not shoot the hostage, you must also be careful not to destroy enemy vehicles too close to the hostages, as the shrapnel will kill the prisoners.
• Airport - You must get the hostages (and yourself) to successfully escape. As in the previous stage, the hostages cross the screen and you must see to their safety. The stage is completed by boarding an airplane which returns you to the United States.

The game is controlled with a positional gun controller attached to the cabinet, with force feedback to simulate recoil. In order to complete each stage, the player must shoot as many soldiers, tanks, jeeps, choppers, and boats as the game requires. Soldiers can throw hand grenades and knives, and vehicles can shoot missiles and launch rockets. The player's ammunition and grenades are limited, but can be stocked up by shooting barrels and crates or by shooting animals such as cats and dogs.

The player has a damage bar that increases each time they are hit. The damage bar also increases upon shooting a civilian or hostage. Energy boost items randomly appear which, if shot, decrease damage by five points. Once the bar reaches maximum, the game is over.

[edit] Ports

One of the most ported arcade games of all time. It has seen releases on everything from the CPC to DOS, as well as the NES, and Turbographix 16.

In 2005, Operation Wolf was released on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Windows as part of Taito Legends; however, light gun support is unavailable.

[edit] Endings

The game's ending was determined by factors in the game, in which multiple endings were attained:

• Exhaustion of health - Scene of player collapsing, and script saying "You have sustained a lethal injury. Sorry, but you are finished here."

• Exhaustion of ammunition - Scene of player in a prison cell, and script saying either "Since you have no ammunition left, you must join the hostages." (Arcade) or "You have run out of ammunition. You have no choice but to join the prisoners." (NES)

• Completing all six stages - The player meets the President of the United States and collects payment. The number of hostages determines the President's tone of voice:

0 - Angry 1 - Unhappy 2 - Disappointed 3 - Satisfied 4 - Happy 5 - Very Happy

[edit] Miscellaneous

• When the machine is set to the Japanese via the DIP switch settings, the game allows the player some flexibility in choosing mission order, and three missions can be skipped entirely. When it is set to English, the six missions are always played in a set order. The player is penalized for skipping missions by reinforcements being added to the Airport mission and by reducing the bonus earned after completing the Airport mission. When the game was ported to the NES, the Japanese version kept the mission select feature, while other versions again lacked it.
• Voiceovers are in English even when the game's language is set to Japanese.

[edit] External links

• Operation Wolf at the Killer List of Videogames
• Operation Wolf at MobyGames
• Operation Wolf page at NES HQ
• Web-based Operation Wolf port (TG 16)
• Operation Wolf at World of Spectrum