Seawolves (C64)

Summary

I am truly flabbergasted with how well Seawolves has turned out. I had serious doubts of the game in the months leading up to the game as coder Jon Woods appeared to be way too fixated on the technicalities of his code base and the beta version I played had nil playability to it. All credit to Jon who not only proves to be a highly capable technical coder but a very effective game designer to produce a modern day adaptation of Sea Wolf that stands tall among classic and modern day titles. The visuals will no doubt draw you into Seawolves, and they are quite stunning and very unique for the Commodore 64. The SFX is strong, though the game is devoid of any SID music tracks. The arcade style game play is quite immersive with its progressive design ensuring that you always see something new as you get deeper into the game. The action on screen can get quite hectic at times and the three tier level objectives ensure that your full concentration is required in order to progress. There are just so many touches added to Seawolves that make it unique – from the Kraken enemy, to the use of the drone in wingman mode and all the way through to the multiple single player game modes. The Wingman mode is my favourite and just elevates the fun and strategy to what would otherwise be just another old style arcade game. Throw in the AI Rival mode where your goal is to work with the AI player to ensure that neither one of you win 3 games in a row and what you have is almost a different game all together. Seawolves is the new benchmark when it comes to adapting old time classics to modern C64 gaming. Time to ditch the faithful representation of 40 year old games and bring us C64 players with something new and unique – something like Seawolves.