| Table Of Contents | |
| WWE Introduction | |
| MicroLeague Wrestling Introduction | |
| Gameplay | |
| Reviews | |
| Expansion Packs | |
| MicroLeague Wrestling II | |
| Trivia | |
| Extras Section |
Introduction - WWE
There are currently over seventy different WWE licensed video games, on
over 30 different consoles. The latest of which was 2020’s, WWE 2K
Battlegrounds, a cartoonish, arcade-style fighting game developed by Saber
Interactive. But let's go back to over 30 years ago, when the WWE was
still known as the WWF, and Hulk Hogan was reigning champion.
Introduction - Microleague Wrestling
In 1987 the WWF commissioned, their first ever licensed video game,
titled Microleague Wrestling. It was published by Microleague sports
association, and is the second game in their sports series, the first of
which was Microleague baseball. Released for the Commodore 64 & Atari
ST, It was designed by Subway Software and programmed by Riedel Software
Productions.
Unlike the countless professional wrestling games released around that
time, as well as those released since which focus more on action oriented
gameplay, Microleague wrestling was a turn based strategy game, where
players would take turns selecting their wrestler’s moves from a small
selection menu, the computer would compare the two moves then decide which
was successful, playing the outcome on screen.
Distinct from the wrestling games of today, which have numerous possible
match ups and wrestler selections. Players only had a choice between two
pre-set matches, both of which featured the reigning champion and face of
the company at the time, Hulk Hogan against either Macho Man Randy Savage
or Paul “Mr Wonderful” Orndorff.
The game was also one of the first to use digitised images of real people
instead of sprites. A range of other games would later go on to use this
technology, perhaps most notably the first mortal kombat game, released in
1992.
Gameplay - Match Intro and Set Up
Once you have selected the match you wish to play, you will need to
choose the length of the bout. You have three options of, 10 minutes, 20
minutes or a 60 minute grudge match.
After that you will be able to enter the name of the arena, and each
wrestler will be interviewed separately by Mean Gene Okerlund. Then each
wrestler is introduced by Howard Finkel, and their entrance to the ring
will play out.
During the match ringside commentary will be done by a mixture of Vince McMahon, Bruno Sammartino, and Jesse “The Body” Ventura, in the form of text
at the bottom of the screen.
Gameplay - User Interface
At the very top of the screen, there is a timer that displays how long
the match has been going for, just below that is the area where all the
animation will play out. On either side of this area are menus for each
wrestler, labelled with their name at the top.
The game is very simple. All you have to do is select one of these moves
and your opponent will do the same, the computer will then decide which
move is successful and will display the animation on screen. The word
“Success!” will also appear at the bottom of the menu of the successful
wrestler.
For each successful move you execute you will deal a certain amount of
damage points to your opponent. The amount of damage points each wrestler
has received is displayed at the bottom of their move selection
menu.
You will also gain power for each successful move executed. Power and
damage points are combined and displayed on a relative dominance meter, at
the bottom of the screen. This meter will change throughout the match as
you receive more damage or power. The higher your wrestler's relative
dominance meter, the better the chance of successfully executing a
move.
Gameplay - Types of moves
The amount of damage dealt and power received for a successful move
depends on its type.
The first five moves on the selection menu are called basic moves and are
the easiest moves to execute. If performed successfully they will inflict
2 points of damage on your opponent and you will receive +1 power.
The next four moves are major moves, which are slightly harder to
successfully execute but will deal 4 points of damage to your opponent and
boost your power by +2.
Below the major moves is the wrestlers signature super move for example
Hulk Hogan's famous leg drop, these are the hardest moves to perform but
if successful will deal 6 points of damage to your opponent and boost your
power by +3
There is also an option to block your opponent's move, the probability of
success is pretty high and if successful you will gain 2 points of damage
back.
If a wrestler successfully executes three moves in a row they will be “on
a roll” and will gain an extra +2 power for every successful move.
Occasionally neither wrestler will attempt to perform a move and will
simply try and size each other up, while taking a brief rest.
Gameplay - Special Events
Each wrestler also has the ability to perform a special event unique to
that wrestler and the type of character they are. These special events are
not guaranteed to succeed.
Hulk Hogan has the ability to get the crowd on his side by pressing H. He
can only perform this action once a match but can not be disqualified for
doing so.
Paul Orndorff “Mr Wonderful” and Macho Man Randy Savage can get their
managers to distract Hogan by pressing O for orndorff or S for savage.
This type of special event can be performed twice per match but runs the
risk of being disqualified.
You can request a special event at any time during the match but it can
only successfully happen once for Hulk Hogan and twice for Paul Orndorff
or Randy Savage.
Gameplay - Winning
In order to pin your opponent and win the match you first have to get
your opponent over their damage threshold which is based on the matches
length.
For a 10 minute match the threshold is over 30 points of damage, for a 20
minute match it's over 45 points of damage and for a grudge match it's
over 60 points of damage.
Once your opponent has passed their damage threshold you must
successfully perform your super move onto them which will then result in a
pin and the victory. If neither opponent is able to pin the other before
the end of the match it will end in a draw.
The game received mixed reviews when it was released, the main criticism
seemingly being the lack of challenge and gameplay as well as a heavy
reliance on WWF personalities.
Ron Stewart from Page 6 magazine, praised the game for its
uniqueness but criticised it for its reliance on the wrestlers
personalities “unless you know the American wrestling scene the game loses
that little something”. He also criticised the sound of the game as well
as the lack of what he described as digital speech. His final words on the
game were “MicroLeague Wrestling would appear to have limited appeal
unless you are an avid wrestling fan.”
When reviewing the Atari ST port for Atari Explorer magazine, Andy Eddy
gave the game an overall rating of 7 out of 10 calling the game fun but
also criticised the games lack of content “I did, however, find it a bit
boring to view the same moves over and over.”
In his review for ACE magazine, Andy Wilton called the game great fun
praising in his words “Great use of digitised graphics, a witty commentary
line and some lovely crunch-thwack sound effects all go down a treat,”.
But also mentioned the lack of challenge. Overall the game was given the
ACE rating of 740 out of 1000.
The game was called repetitive and somewhat uninspiring by your commodore
magazine.
In a review from commodore user magazine, Bohdan Buciak called the use of
digitised real pictures a good idea and said that the sequences were very
well displayed. However he goes on to criticise the lack of gameplay and
challenge and says “Once you’ve seen all the sequences of moves (and there
are quite a few of them) and read all the mind-numbing commentaries,
interest soon fades.” and gave the game an overall rating of 4 out of
10.
Microleague wrestling Expansions
The game must have been quite successful because in 1988 microleague
released two expansion disks for the game. Under the title of the WWF
superstar series. They required you to own the original game to play them
and just like the original there was one match on each side of the
disk, surprisingly not all the matches included Hulk Hogan
Volume 1 of the WWF superstar series featured the Honky Tonk Man Vs.
Macho Man Randy Savage on side one and “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan Vs. King
Harley Race on the other.
Volume 2 featured Hulk Hogan Vs. The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase and
Ravishing Rick Rude Vs. Jake “The Snake” Robert.
WWF superstar series volume 3 was advertised as coming soon in some
copies of the expansion disks however for unknown reasons it was never
released. The advertised matches were Ultimate Warrior Vs. “Ravishing”
Rick Rude on one side and Kurt “Mr. Perfect” Henning Vs. Brett “The
Hitman” Hart on the other.
Microleague Wrestling II - The Sequel
In 1989 a sequel titled Microleague Wrestling II was published, This time
it was developed by Up Front Software and was released for the Amiga. In
1990 a MS-DOS port of the sequel was also released. The gameplay is
exactly the same as the original and expansion disks but with better
visuals.
Interestingly Hulk Hogan Vs. Macho Man Randy Savage is still on one side
of the disk and is the exact same match as in the original. The second
match however is not the same with Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase
replacing Paul “Mr Wonderful” Orndorff as Hogan's second opponent.
Unfortunately neither of the WWF superstar series expansion disks were
released for the sequel.
Michael Holda, reviewed the sequel in the august 1990 issue of Video
games and computer entertainment magazine. He praised the new enhanced
graphics stating “You can almost see the sweat dripping down foreheads.”
as well as the similarities of the game compared to an actual WWF event
saying “The interviews are just as entertaining as the real WWF” however
he did criticise the games audio calling it pretty poor in comparison to
the games visuals, overall he gave it a 8 out of 10.
Trivia - Origins of the footage
The available matches were chosen specifically due to the feuds between
the two opponents for example Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage who have had
countless matches against each other.
This was because the game used digitised images instead of the standard
sprites which were common during that time. Meaning Microleague had to use
footage from a variety of matches between the opponents in order to
display the different moves successfully and unsuccessfully on screen.
This is also the reason there is only a small selection of moves
available because these moves are the ones that have been used in matches
against that particular opponent during their feud.
Trivia - Unbeatable Hulk Hogan
According to Arnie Katz who worked on the game, WWF originally wanted
Hulk Hogan to be unbeatable. Here’s what he had to say in an article from
the june 1992 issue of Video games and computer entertainment.
The world wrestling federation asked us, as creators of microleague WWF wrestling, if we could fix the matches so the Hulkster always won. The mat moguls bowed to our knowledge of gaming and dropped the request, but can you imagine if they hadn’t?
Here are some PDF files containing some interesting extras such as the
games manual and advertising materials. (All links go to google drive)
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