Bloody Wolf

Bloody Wolf is a 1988 action romp from Data East, born in the arcades and later moved to the PC Engine console, which is the version this record covers. It is a textbook military run-and-gun of its day: an elite commando, hostages to rescue and a road through enemy territory where the shooting practically never stops.

The player fights through bases and jungle, picks up weapons ranging from grenades to a flamethrower, and occasionally borrows a motorcycle, which pushes the pace even higher. Data East poured in exactly the kind of overheated action aesthetic that period films about one-man armies made famous — muscles, headbands and mountains of ammunition.

The PC Engine conversion has a good reputation among those who were there; the eight-bit console with sixteen-bit graphics carried the arcade original over surprisingly faithfully and even expanded it in places. Ports of this quality are precisely what built the PC Engine's name as a machine for arcade lovers. The arcade original supported two players, while the console release focuses on a lone soldier and compensates with longer missions and reworked content.

Run-and-gun games were the backbone of action entertainment in the late eighties, and Bloody Wolf holds up today: it is fast, direct and refuses to take itself seriously. A perfect candidate for a short, intense session.

Bloody Wolf fires up directly in the browser at OldGame.cz, no hunt for a Japanese console required.