Finally got to give this HuCard a play this morning, and what was initially supposed to be just a quick test ended up keeping me hooked until I took down the general at the end - and then they roped me in for another jaunt with the "Bloody Wolf 2" code. In short, it's an addicting little slice of machismo, you just tearing through a bunch of stupid, clumsy and ineffective baddies like Arnold would in movies of that era. It's the perfect lazy Sunday kind of game - movements don't need to be super precise, enemies are generally quite easy, plenty of powerups everywhere and best of all you can continue from the start of every screen and an infinite amount of times. Dying at a boss allows you to respawn right at the boss, no having to redo the entire level as was usually the norm in these kind of games. It was mostly easy and all the better for it, but there were a few bosses at the end that required multiple attempts that made beating them feel all the more of a triumph.
Bloody Wolf holds up really well today because it has a philosophy that works best with the busier gamers of today - it doesn't force you to waste time backtracking or playing over levels to reach a punishing boss. Instead, it lets the user enjoy the world and encourages extended playtime by offering up incentives upon completion. It tells you the code for a faster soldier after finishing the game once (entering it changes the screen to "Bloody Wolf 2") and after that one you'll be told how to make it so your man can hover all over the screen ("Bloody Wolf 3"). The hover is particularly fun in that it kind of turns the game into a shmup as you just float through the level shooting in every direction. Not sure if there's a "Bloody Wolf 4" hidden in there as well, but the game is fun enough and easy enough that multiple playthroughs are worth it.
I also applaud the level variety - no level is just straight left to right or bottom to top, you're going all over, sometimes even in circles to rescue hostages in one of the later levels, and it really feels like you're infiltrating some enemy fortress rather than just progressing through some linear video game level. There's also variety in that sometimes you are rescuing hostages, sometimes you're escorting the president, sometimes you're having a knife fight and sometimes you're letting it rip with a flame thrower in one hand and a bazooka in another. As "Ninja Spirit" would soon follow, this is an excellent arcade port that seems to work even better as a console experience. There's even wit to the dialogue that happens throughout - I had a good chuckle at the genre-subversion of the final exchange.
Bloody good, as the title suggested...any other fans here. I've noticed Die Hard for the PC Engine and Last Alert for the TG-CD looks to play pretty similar to this one - are there any other PCE or Turbo games that are like this? I love the formula.
Topic: Bloody Wolf - A bloody good time (Read 585 times)
