Arcade Memories Game Of The Week - Operation Wolf

[Body pop]

I absolutely love operation wolf .the best gun game ever in my opinion
It was everywhere .they had it in a local video library 20 p a go
It was in all the big arcades and that iconic sound track and speech blasted out ,in amongst the best era of arcade games in my opinion outrun .720 ,space harrier etc were all in the arcades
Great times ,loads of the old cabs were still there too and all the Jamma games everywhere
I collected pcbs forever and always had Jamma cabs and super gun
I had a few dedicated cabs in my parents garage .paperboy afterburner and super Monaco
Fast forward to about 10 years ago ,I spotted an operation wolf on eBay .i bid and won it .having never had a cab from
The mainland and no idea how i would get it here
The cab was mint and sold as working . It arrived with a broken monitor .so now to try and find someone to fix it
What a feeling when I finally got it going and played it for the first time at home
This really got me into dedicated cabs in a big way .with me having scores and scores of other dedicateds since .
I bought a mini operation wolf local so had the mini and full size .the mini came with two boards .one was meant to be nos but wasn’t .the mini was a bit of a mess inside and got passed on
The full size stuck around for years and had various issues but I sold it eventually working .ive saw the actual cab lately forsale fot 4 grand lol
I bought another a few years later ,the dips were set om this one so you could start on any stage .my previous cab made you playThrough the stages in order .it was also sold eventually to arcade club I think with my 1st toobin at the time
I had operation wolf for the pc engine which was quite cool .I had it for the st .master system and spectrum too
There is and always will be only one way to play it .
It’s just such a beast of a machine to move about and I’ve the hernia to prove it
It’s def in the top 6 arcade games ever for me .just don’t get a cab with the bullets not registering as I don’t know if anyone who can fix this problem yet
The way the gun vibrated in your hands .how the mirror effect made it all seem so much bigger ,it was action packed ,music and graphics totally outstanding and the cab was so cool .
I may of sustained a lethal injury (the hernia ) but I wasn’t finished here .well actually I am

 

[TheDaddy]

For me it was the voice that you heard as you walked past the Arcade " Operation Wolf " , Even though I was rubbish at it I had to go in and play it !!!!!

Dave.

 

[Stokers]

Yeah, Operation Wolf had a nice intro where the main character suits up - similar to a very thought provoking piece of cinema called 'Commando' from 1985.

It did always bother me that Operation Wolf man is seleotaping rockets / grenades to his leg..how practical is that? Either way considering the age of the game it still looks and especially sounds great, I need to get up to arcade club or wherever and play some of these classics

 

[Bods]

I could get the full size one out of the games room because that has aluminium strip at bottom but trying to get it back in the house with silly plastic is a pain, once you have some wood to wheel in over it's too high unless you can tip it back far, it's not easy on your own and even harder when you have no room to move it about so I had to lay it down that was final pics of it before selling it on

 

[John Bennett]

It did always bother me that Operation Wolf man is seleotaping rockets / grenades to his leg..how practical is that? I've been watching videos of Operation Wolf off the back of this thread, I think it still looks and sounds great. I really need to get up to arcade club.

That's a good point. It's no wonder he walks slowly, getting peppered with bullets, if he's got rocket bombs taped by his groin.

 

[Bods]

side by side size comparison and looking at the pics I got the mini one in Sept 2013


Only just noticed the watch tower on full size is on front of cab but missed it out on mini but it carries on upto the top panel


I do like machines original but the Full Side Art Muddy has done for the Mini is very tempting as I really liked the full artwork on the big cab

 

[mysticmonk]

A few things I remember clearly.
The real sub machine gun and it rattling like a madman, and always being freezing cold to the touch for some reason.
Not understanding how you can't just keep shooting and the fire rate slowing down to a dribble, then picking the entire cabinet up and lobbing it across the street in frustration (in my imagination)
Really cool game though, I'd love to play it again.

 

[Bods]

Wolf cab a year and half after I bought it, it was sideways against the wall till I got Chase HQ and a Jamma cab to play Double Dragon

This was how I got it without the original Camouflage monitor glass so it wasn't long before 1 cab and grown to 3 and I had a mame jamma cab upstairs too so that was 4 in less than 2 years lol

 

[kuato_lives]

Great memories of this game! Used to play it in a little cafe upstairs after swimming at our local pool. First played it at the Museum of Army Transport in Beverley (sad to see that closed down in 2003) and distinctly remember a soldier walking past me and saying “watch your mags! watch your mags!” as I hopelessly peppered everything but the enemy. “Spray and pray” I believe it’s called

 

[RygarR]

I love a quick blast on Operation Wolf. I first saw it when it was new over here in 1988. Not sure if it was on a motorway service station on the M6, or in the big arcade down in Paignton in Devon. Either way it was in one of those specially converted Electrocoin cabs. These days, I enjoy it for the game itself, but also the memories of the action movies it ripped off. Back then, Arnie, Sly-vester, and arcade games like Op Wolf consumed the lion share of my summer holidays. I've written a blogpost about it, which includes a double-blind scientific survey of the levels of violence in Sly's Rambo, and Arnie's Commando, followed by a discussion of which of them might be the leading influence on Operation Wolf. If you haven't seen it, you really need to check it out!.

 

[John Bennett]

It was also nice of the developers to let one of their kids draw the cover of the service manual.

 

[Stokers]

Can wait for someone to start the Time Crisis 2 thread, I played that so often I could fly through on 1 credit no problem.

It was also nice of the developers to let one of their kids draw the cover of the service manual.

View attachment 14447

Please tell me that's legit

It looks like a potato with a face painted on it is playing.

 

[K1ngarth3r]

I think I first played this on Master System with the light phaser and enjoyed it. I recall only remembering seeing it once in The arcade whilst at a theme park.

 

[John Bennett]

Can wait for someone to start the Time Crisis 2 thread, I played that so often I could fly through on 1 credit no problem.

Please tell me that's legit

It looks like a potato with a face painted on it is playing.

That'll be a PoTaito

(Taxi for one...)

Yeah, it's legit:

Operation Wolf Operation Wolf Operating Manual : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Operation Wolf Operation Wolf Operating Manual

archive.org

edit: Well the picture is. The story about the kid, I made up.

 

[Stokers]

That'll be a PoTaito

Well played sir.

 

[Del Griffith]

Fond memories of this game as a kid. Miss the cab I had but it was a bit of a pain to keep on the working side. Such a great game to play

 

[69er]

One technical tip I found was the taito cabinets often had ‘incomepak’ credit boards just inside the coin door and they had an alpha display pin out connector as I recall

The barcrest Mpu4 alpha display and it’s loom which could be easily detached from the fruit machine plugged directly into that output and instantly displayed the credit settings price of play when adjusting to a different price ..
I still have one in a cupboard in my workshop used for that purpose…

we found it quite handy as some of our sites could be 30 p or 50 for two while others only 20p sometimes 3 for 50 and 7 for a pound and the bonus switches where not easy to work out ,,,
It was a must to keep the price below the level at which the NEW AT THAT TIME - (1995) AMLD AMUSEMENT MACHINE LICENCE DUTY CAME IN FORCE FOR VIDEO GAMES AND PINBALLS ETC WHICH QUALIFIED IF SET ON 50 p play thus many early twin sit-down driver games and pinballs in pubs and arcades got set at 3 for £1 and no single credit option to avoid the annoying tax ,

 

[Bods]

I love a quick blast on Operation Wolf. I first saw it when it was new over here in 1988. Not sure if it was on a motorway service station on the M6, or in the big arcade down in Paignton in Devon. Either way it was in one of those specially converted Electrocoin cabs. These days, I enjoy it for the game itself, but also the memories of the action movies it ripped off. Back then, Arnie, Sly-vester, and arcade games like Op Wolf consumed the lion share of my summer holidays. I've written a blogpost about it, which includes a double-blind scientific survey of the levels of violence in Sly's Rambo, and Arnie's Commando, followed by a discussion of which of them might be the leading influence on Operation Wolf. If you haven't seen it, you really need to check it out!.

View attachment 14445

Only one I seen in Goliath cab so far was this one which had Op Wolf Bootleg PCB and Gun which I still have after restoring back to Crossbow
The guy it came from originally told me he used to go China himself and buy the bootleg stuff

 

[Bods]

That'll be a PoTaito

(Taxi for one...)

Classic

 

[Bods]

My index finger still remembers how painful it was to squeeze the metal trigger for any length of time! Found myself swapping to other fingers as they went numb

Switched mine on yesterday, at first no screen and after a few minutes it was working so had a good few goes

I can confirm I now (being serious) have a blister on my trigger finger