Publisher – Taito
Year Of Release – 1987
Twenty summers ago a young boy was queuing at the change booth in the Amusement Arcade in Skerries. He had a £1.00 note that was soon to become ten 10p coins and every one of those coins were going to be deposited into one arcade game. Of course you can guess who the boy was but the game was Operation Wolf.
This arcade game stood out from the others as there was a machine gun attached to the upright cabinet. Not only that, the gun looked real and to this 12 year-old boy it felt how he imagined a real machine gun would feel. It was heavy and every time the trigger was squeezed there was actual recoil. The game itself was a side-scrolling shoot ‘em up that panned across various landscapes over six different levels. The object of the game was to rescue hostages from a concentration camp. It was the digital incarnation of the old shooting gallery games.
I had a Commodore 64 back then and as soon as I heard that Operation Wolf was going to be released for it my pocket money was no longer transformed into 10p coins but was squirreled away until I had enough to buy it. That day seemed to take an age but when it came it was an event. Myself, and some friends piled into my bedroom, put in the tape and waited. And waited. The loading screen appeared and there was silence. More waiting, the joystick in my hand in a death grip, the tension building and then it was time. What separated Operation Wolf from the rest was the fact that it did not have a cartoon feel to it, it was as realistic as the technology of the day allowed. There were no jokes, no tongues in cheeks, saving these hostages was a serious business.
We sat there for hours passing the joystick from one to another as we perished with the phrase, “You have sustained a lethal injury. Sorry, but you are finished here”. You see that was the problem with Operation Wolf, it was too damn hard. We had seen the Communications and Jungle levels but had only heard whispers and rumours of Village, Ammunition Dump, Concentration Camp and Airport levels. But over the following days and weeks we slowly got better. The amount of soldiers, tanks, jeeps, boats and choppers we destroyed got higher with every attempt. The amount of civilians we killed became fewer as time went on and ammunition was not wasted as needlessly. If one of us managed to stumble onto a new level we were all exhilarated and talked about it for the rest of the day.
We had all seen the Rambo Trilogy, Predator, Platoon and Commando and while we played Operation Wolf we were living those films. That summer was the summer of Operation Wolf, the summer where saving hostages was all we thought about. Nowadays, sitting on a juicy mortgage with bills to pay and all the other responsibilities of a grown man I am not too surprised to find myself smiling affectionately as I reminisce about this 20 year-old game.
Year Of Release – 1987
Twenty summers ago a young boy was queuing at the change booth in the Amusement Arcade in Skerries. He had a £1.00 note that was soon to become ten 10p coins and every one of those coins were going to be deposited into one arcade game. Of course you can guess who the boy was but the game was Operation Wolf.
This arcade game stood out from the others as there was a machine gun attached to the upright cabinet. Not only that, the gun looked real and to this 12 year-old boy it felt how he imagined a real machine gun would feel. It was heavy and every time the trigger was squeezed there was actual recoil. The game itself was a side-scrolling shoot ‘em up that panned across various landscapes over six different levels. The object of the game was to rescue hostages from a concentration camp. It was the digital incarnation of the old shooting gallery games.
I had a Commodore 64 back then and as soon as I heard that Operation Wolf was going to be released for it my pocket money was no longer transformed into 10p coins but was squirreled away until I had enough to buy it. That day seemed to take an age but when it came it was an event. Myself, and some friends piled into my bedroom, put in the tape and waited. And waited. The loading screen appeared and there was silence. More waiting, the joystick in my hand in a death grip, the tension building and then it was time. What separated Operation Wolf from the rest was the fact that it did not have a cartoon feel to it, it was as realistic as the technology of the day allowed. There were no jokes, no tongues in cheeks, saving these hostages was a serious business.
We sat there for hours passing the joystick from one to another as we perished with the phrase, “You have sustained a lethal injury. Sorry, but you are finished here”. You see that was the problem with Operation Wolf, it was too damn hard. We had seen the Communications and Jungle levels but had only heard whispers and rumours of Village, Ammunition Dump, Concentration Camp and Airport levels. But over the following days and weeks we slowly got better. The amount of soldiers, tanks, jeeps, boats and choppers we destroyed got higher with every attempt. The amount of civilians we killed became fewer as time went on and ammunition was not wasted as needlessly. If one of us managed to stumble onto a new level we were all exhilarated and talked about it for the rest of the day.
We had all seen the Rambo Trilogy, Predator, Platoon and Commando and while we played Operation Wolf we were living those films. That summer was the summer of Operation Wolf, the summer where saving hostages was all we thought about. Nowadays, sitting on a juicy mortgage with bills to pay and all the other responsibilities of a grown man I am not too surprised to find myself smiling affectionately as I reminisce about this 20 year-old game.
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