This possible inspiration appears to be backed up by Taito’s sequel, 1988’s Operation Thunderbolt.
Operation Wolf‘s final level even echoes the events in Delta Force, since it too takes place on a runway, with a moving plane full of hostages and soldiers in hot pursuit. Distracted by the noise, you’d probably end up doing something stupid like accidentally shoot a nurse, and then the sound would reach a crescendo, the screen would burn to dazzling white, and… “Sorry, but you are finished here.”Įvery pixel, concept, and sound seemed ripped straight from the gung-ho action films of the Reagan era, from its jungle setting – which could easily be Val Verde, the fictional country screenwriter Steven E de Souza cooked up for the 1985 film Commando – to the hostage rescue scenario, which appears to have been inspired by the 1986 film, Delta Force. Then you’d hear the dreadful warning sound as your damage meter headed towards its maximum. Meanwhile, you’d have to avoid hitting hostages, keep a close eye on your energy reserves, and pray that more supplies would soon scroll into view. Soldiers would keep flooding onto the screen, then would come helicopters or boats, or tanks, or more soldiers on motorbikes.
Like Space Invaders, Operation Wolf became ever faster and more intense as the game progressed. They both feature a scarce resource – ammo and energy in Op Wolf, lives, protective shields, and plain old breathing room in Space Invaders – and both thrive on testing the player’s ability to remain calm under pressure. They’re both about an advancing enemy which you’re trying to keep at bay. Both Space Invaders and Operation Wolf have certain similarities, despite their difference in perspective and theme. The game was designed by Taito, who’d transformed the arcade industry less than a decade earlier with Space Invaders. It was touches like these which made Operation Wolfmore than just another digital shooting gallery. Sometimes, a soldier would throw a knife and it would stick out of the screen in front of you, grotesquely, as though it was actually jutting out of your own chest. Warnings constantly flashed up on the screen. Even though you could top these back up by shooting odd things like energy-giving pigs or potion bottles, extra explosives or ammo, Operation Wolf always gave you the sense that you were on the cusp of being overwhelmed. In Operation Wolf, you were always running out of something – bullets, grenades, energy. The claustrophobia was increased by the constant sense of crisis. The sheer amount of movement and action in each made them feel weirdly claustrophobic – soldiers appeared in the background as tiny little figures, but they could also leap out right in front of you, too.
The screen scrolls across a series of battlefields familiar from a legion of war films: military strongholds fringed by barbed wire and studded with metal huts. Nintendo’s Duck Hunt made gun games seem positively cozy, as genteel a pastime as pottery or basket weaving. From its opening seconds, an entire army of soldiers, tanks, and helicopters assaulted the screen, shooting unnervingly in the direction of your face. Operation Wolfwas a full-on visual, aural, and physical assault.
When you pulled the trigger, it bucked and writhed in your hands. Actually playing the game was more visceral still. The noise coming from Operation Wolf was absolutely cacophonous: an endless churn of gunfire, explosions, and screams of varying sorts – oofs, gasps, and high-pitched shrieks.