Vintage Arcade Games: Operation Wolf

Operation Wolf was an addictive retro journey through a hail of bullets and explosions! 

Growing up, there was always an abundance of arcade games available to play.  Locally there was usually an arcade machine in the chip shop and there was at least two arcades in the city centre which had a small cult following. Trips to the seaside or beach always had that cold weather safety net of the amusements. So finding something to play on was never a big problem.

There much to amuse us and we were lucky with the choices we had in our youth. There was the Street Fighter game series. Mortal Kombat had just appeared on the scene and the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles arcade game offered an engrossing multi-player game experience.

But the one arcade game that I made a beeline for was Operation Wolf.

This shoot em up involved a mounted rifle with the ability to launch grenades at enemy fighters and mechanized threats such as helicopters. It was a single player game with enemies attacking you with knives, guns, grenades and rockets. The great thing about the game was that you could shoot the projectiles out of the way with your trusty weapon. 

There were six main areas of the game and if memory serves, there was an actual story line to the game, which at the time was almost revolutionary!

Operation Wolf III.

You had to rescue the hostages in the first phase and the information that they gave you, led you to different environments to battle more enemies. You were given a limited amount of ammo and grenades, but you could pick up more by destroying crates and other scenery.

The game was soon made available for domestic machines and it was very fell received on those home based formats. I took great pleasure in playing the Commodore 64 version, but it was available on the Spectrum, Amstrad and the early consoles.




Operation Wolf also made its way onto the higher end consoles at the turn of the millennium, yet light guns were never fully utilized across those releases. I can only recall playing with a light gun on the NES from Nintendo, although I am sure that the Sega Master System offered the same option.  From the platforms that I had the chance to play on, it was always a controller or control pad on the consoles. Whereas the early computers and PC releases relied on a joystick and keyboard controls to allow you to play the game.

Operation Wolf went on to have another three sequels in Operation Thunderbolt, Operation Wolf III and Operation Tiger. I never got to play Operation Tiger as I don't believe it was as widely available or as well received as its forerunners.

Despite the game falling into obscurity in these modern times. The original game was a much loved and well received offering to Gamers everywhere. 
On the PS4, a re-imagining of the game is available as Operation Warcade.