Rogue Combat Squad: Bloody Wolf

The TG-16 is such an interesting and fascinating system. I love going through the library and finding gems on it. Bloody Wolf is indeed such a gem for those who are familiar with games in this era. This is actually a port of a Data East arcade machine (haven't played.. yet) that is two player co-op I decided to play this port on my own and save the co-op arcade version for another time (hopefully with a friend). You might think that a arcade port that as co op that got downgraded to single player would be doomed to be bad...

Uh - oh! The game have started to move!

Overall, Bloody Wolf plays really well. It's well design in that there is methodical and precision shooting strategies, Technique-based boss killing strategies. Power-up collection strategies and more. The game gives you infinite continues (one one life!) and you start at the beginning of gated check point areas. Its not terribly hard (except for the final boss, which is very much terribly hard) Much of the game is programmed and not random. Combined with infinite continues after checkpoint respawns make it fun to play without cheating.

The game is essentially a formulaic top-down shooter, that doesn't deviate too much from the genre. Similar to Ikari Warriors, Caliber .50, MERCS, etc. There are weapon upgrades for both your primary weapon and your grenades. you will stab someone with a knife if you are close (some enemies must be stabbed to take them out) you also get health, max life increases, and equipment/gear

The 'gear' is interesting. You can get about half a dozen upgrades that are things such as infra-red goggles that let you see the lasers that open up trap door pits (sound familiar????) This game is inspired and has some stylization of a handful of other games including P**.O.W Prisoners of War** and has the same ridiculous story premise of Bad Dudes... If you like tracing influence and seeing nods to other games, check this one out sometime. I found it quite fun.