Museum of the Game ®

International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Sea Wolf

Description

Timed submarine game where player looks through a large periscope to aim at ships moving across the top of the screen. Torpedos are launched with a thumb button on the right handle of the scope. Mines floating across the screen can block players torpedoes. Fast-moving PT Boat worth most points is hardest to hit. Game ends when time expires. Bonus time is added when player reaches operator-selectable point level.

Sea Wolf was produced by Midway Manufacturing Co. in 1976.

Midway Manufacturing Co. released 132 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1959. Midway Manufacturing Co. was based in United States.

Other machines made by Midway Manufacturing Co. during the time period Sea Wolf was produced include: Wheels, Racer, Gun Fight, Wheels II, TV Flipper, Tornado Baseball, Top Gun, 280 ZZZAP, Amazing Maze, and Datsun 280 Zzzap dup

Specs

Name	Sea Wolf
Developer	Midway Manufacturing Co. (United States)
Year	1976
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	9459
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Shooter
Conversion Class	Midway 8080
Dipswitch Settings	Sea Wolf Dipswitch Settings (user contributed)
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	1
Game Play	Single
Control Panel Layout	Single Player
Controls	Periscope with button - Fire
Sound	Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles	Upright/Standard

Video Clips

Sea Wolf (Midway 1976)

Midway Sea Wolf (1976)

Game Introduction

Players look through a periscope to aim at ships. A targeting cross-hair and the number of torpedos remaining are seen through the scope. When the player has launched five torpedos, a red "RELOAD" light comes on momentarily. These are not shown on the screen, but are back-lit transparencies reflected inside the scope. Likewise, when ships are hit on the screen, an explosion "light" is reflected inside the scope. Torpedos are fired by pressing a thumb-button on the right-hand periscope handle.

Game Play

You can fire multiple torpedos and increase your chances of hitting a target. You can also lead the PT boat by quite a bit to hit it.

Sea Wolf KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.51 (11 votes)

Fun Factor: 3.67

Overall Like	3.91
Fun (Social)	3.80
Fun (Solo)	3.45
Collector Desire	3.80

Technical Rating: 3.34

Gameplay	3.91
Graphics	2.91
Originality	3.36
Sound/Music	3.18

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

Images

Trivia

The inspiration for this game comes from a very large mechanical game from the mid 60's called Periscope by Sega. Periscope was the first game ever to require a quarter for a single play which set the pricing trend into the video game era.

Cabinet Information

A blue overlay is used to simulate water. The monitor is mounted flat inside the cabinet facing upwards and the image is reflected by a mirror towards the player. If you were to look at the screen directly, everything would appear backwards.

Miscellaneous

The most memorable and distinguishing sounds from this game have to be the sonar piiiing..... piiiing and the sound of the PT Boat racing across the screen oscillating, buzzing sound.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Sea Wolf Census

There are 15,247 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,663 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,913 machines (6,994 unique titles).

Very Common - There are 142 known instances of this machine owned by Sea Wolf collectors who are active members. Of these, 139 of them are original dedicated machines. 2 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 11 active VAPS members with a Sea Wolf machines for sale.

Wanted - Popular - There are 11 active VAPS members currently looking for Sea Wolf. There is one active VAPS member looking for a Sea Wolf circuit board set.

This game ranks a 28 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 20 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Technical

The ROM chips tend to get warm and slightly pop out of their sockets. Random game behavior strange shapes or garbage on the screen, or a game crash can usually be cured by gently reseating the chips.

One major problem with all the Midway games of this era was the increased voltage output of VLED. VLED is used to supply the opto isolators mounted on the game PCB smaller plug in PCB. Over time, the 12-volt bulbs mounted behind the front display glass used to blow and cause VLED to rise to such a level that the LEDs in the opto devices were damaged. The result being the loss of input control from joysticks, buttons and position encoder PCBs. The PSU capacitors used to dry up quickly too giving ripples on the DC supplies.

Legacy

Sea Wolf
Sea Wolf II

Foto-Finder® (Books)

Arcade Treasures Kurtz (ISBN 088740619X) Page: 101; Color photo
The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 38; Color photo Price guide: No
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 38; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

3D Model (External): Upright (a27e2f3f135781b06f383178a3696f29)

eBay Listings

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TOP WATCHED LISTINGS FOR: Sea Wolf