Sea Wolf is an arcade game by Midway, originally released in 1976. The player looks through a large periscope to aim at ships moving across the virtual sea line at the top of the screen, using a thumb button on the right handle of the scope to fire torpedoes. The periscope swivels to the right and left, providing horizontal motion of a targeting cross-hair. The cabinet features a mixture of video game and older electro-mechanical technology for player feedback. Using back-lit transparencies reflected inside the scope, the number of torpedoes remaining are displayed, as well as a red "RELOAD" light which lights up momentarily when the player has launched five torpedoes. Additionally, when ships are hit on the screen, an explosion "light" is reflected inside the scope. A blue overlay is affixed to the screen to provide a "water color" to the sea. Sounds include a sonar ping and the sound of the PT Boat racing across the screen. Sea Wolf is time-limited, with the player having an opportunity to win bonus time by reaching an operator-set score. The player's score is shown on the bottom half of the screen as well as the high score, one of the first known instances of a high score in a video game. Targets include destroyers, a fast moving PT Boat, and mines floating across the screen can that serve as obstructions.


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Vertical shooter made more interesting by the cabinet controller.

I really liked the presentation on this one, despite being a tad too finicky for my taste. Playing these games it soon becomes clear that Midway was becoming the first real competitor of Atari in an era where Atari had to make up its own competition to avoid being accused of being a monopoly.

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Me gustó la presentación de este juego, a pesar de tener unos controles demasiado estrictos para mi gusto. Al jugar a estas cosas, me queda claro que Midway se fue el primer competidor serio de Atari en un momento en el que tenía que inventarse su competencia para evitar que la acusaran de prácticas monopolísticas.

A boat shooting game in which you play the part of a periscope operator on a submarine, ordering missiles to be fired at ships on the horizon. You can't really play this game in its correct form anymore, which presumably links your controls to the periscope you're looking through, leaving you with basically just a regular shooter where you aim left and right and fire off some torpedos.

Surprisingly it's still pretty fun, and the loud booming sound effects are impressive. I like it, in all its simplicity.

3 - Decent: An acceptable, playable game with notable appeal