Lost In Translation/Sea Wolf II

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This page is a stub for arcade games that are part of the Lost In Translation series using information based on MAME (version 0.113u2).
For an example of preferred content and layout please refer to Out Run or The Ninja Warriors.


Sea Wolf II
Sea Wolf II marquee.
No screen shot.
Sea Wolf II control panel.
Manufacturer Midway
Released 1978
Control
Method
Paddle
1 Button(s)
Main CPU Z80 (@ 1.790 MHz)
Sound CPU Stereo
Discrete
Video
Details
Raster (Horizontal)
352 x 240 pixels
60.05 Hz
512 Palette colours
Screens 1
ROM Info 4 ROMs
8,192 bytes (8.00 KiB)
MAME ID seawolf2

About The Game

Sea Wolf II is an arcade video game shoot-em-up.

The game screen is a side view of a underwater scene (with the surface towards the top). You control a cross-hair at the surface level. The object is to shoot as many ships as possible, before the time runs out. Your torpedoes are launched from the bottom of the screen, and must move upwards to hit the enemy ships (while avoiding the mines that float at different levels of the water). There are several different types of enemy ships, from slow moving destroyers, to fast moving PT boats. An 'explosion' light will flash inside your periscope each time you score a hit. Your submarine can shoot five shots before it has to reload (an automatic action that takes about a second). Your game will be extended if you reach a certain score before time runs out (the score is operator adjustable).

Additional Technical Information

This game has one cool looking cabinet. It is in an upright format and is dark blue. The side art is painted on, but is much more subdued than the art on the original "Sea Wolf". Two metal periscopes come down from the marquee area and attach down by the control panel area (or where the control panel would have been, if this game had one). The players look through their periscopes and move them to control the game. They have a fire button mounted on their right handle. The periscopes also have several transparencies inside which provide a cross hair, a display of remaining torpedoes, a reload light, and cause the explosion effect.

Trivia

Released in June 1978, Sea Wolf II is the first-ever sequel! It was basically the exact same game as its predecessor with a few cosmetic improvements.

Still, at least one of the cosmetic tweaks in "Sea Wolf"'s case was a ground-breaker in its own right - though there's some argument over the fact, Sea Wolf II is generally thought to have been the first coin-op to use genuine colour, but was definitely not the first! Real colour had been used as early as 1974 (in "Pace Car Pro") and possibly in 1973 (in "Wimbledon" and the "Color Gotcha"). These games, however, made very limited use of colour (as did others, like Atari's "Sprint 8") and most of them didn't sell very well. Sea Wolf II, on the other hand, sold fairly well and may have been the first game to make extensive use of colour. Sea Wolf II probably represents the very first 'modern' video game.

About 4,000 units were produced.

Series

1. Sea Wolf (1976)

2. Sea Wolf II (1978)

Staff

Designed & Programmed By
Tom McHugh
Dave Nutting

Cabinet and Artwork

Ports

Computers
Atari 800 (1983)
Commodore C64


The contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The sources used include MAME (version 0.113u2) and history.dat (revision 1.28 - 2008-10-18).
Please see http://www.arcade-history.com for credits.