"Durr, hey! Ain't dis my territory? Yeah blood, bullets and lots of battle- crazed Vietnamese to waste - must be. Dey should have consulted me 'bout the script for Rambo 5... "
Listen, John, you'll get your chance later. This isn't your war. You can't kill everyone in Vietnam; give someone else a go. Just for a little while...
"Hmph!"
Finally, Operation Wolf has arrived on the Sega. Even though Operation Thunderbolt - the follow up to the gory guns and grenades game - is well established in the arcades and most home machines, the Sega sadly lags several years behind in terms of software releases.
The gist of the game is to gun down anything (bar wild life, the occasional hostage and Red Cross doctors) that gallivants onto the screen. Most games offer a little more for your cranium to cope with - not Operation Wolf. Just pump the trigger and hope you don't kill too many innocent bypassers on the way.
There are six missions in total: blast the baddies, blast the baddies, blast the baddies, blast the baddies, blast the baddies and blast the baddies. Good to see that the Sega conversion retains the coin-op's gameplay variety. You're presented with a screen detailing all the missions and the number of soldiers, tanks and helicopters you can expect to encounter along the way.
In the first mission you must... um, blast the baddies. Actually you're at the enemy's communications headquarters and must sever all lines between the different parts of the prison camp. Essentially that translates to blasting all the baddies.
Action progresses from left to right, with enemies appearing on both sides of the screen. When certain enemies are shot, extra weapons are left behind. It's possible to collect extra rounds of ammo, grenades and lives by shooting the objects that are left behind.
Each time you are shot your energy bar tumbles. Too many shots and you die. Energy capsules can be collected, but these appear infrequently. The best way of avoiding being shot is to shoot first. Well, there's a surprise.
Although it's easy to criticise the crude gameplay, Operation Wolf on the Sega is a pleasingly polished conversion. Some of the 16-bit conversions have been dreadful due to poor loading times, jerky graphics and slow execution. In comparison, the Sega version sparkles.
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