5. WWF Micro League Wrestling
Micro League Wrestling was the first ever official game based on the WWE product so it can be somewhat forgiven for not being very good at all. Micro League Sports had already been developing games for other popular sports and took a strange approach to their first wrestling game. Instead of being a normal sports simulation, Micro League was more of a turn based strategy game more along the lines of a trading card game. Released on the Commodore 64 and Amiga, the original Micro League Wrestling came on a floppy disk and featured just one match on each side of the disk. One side featured Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage and the other was Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff. As you chose the moves your wrestler carried out, the game put them together in a basic photo slideshow based on digitized images from real WWE matches. Like most strategy games, you were armed with a number of pre set moves that differed in their toughness to pull off. You had 5 basic moves, 4 major moves and 1 Super Move that acted as your finisher. Or if you were feeling vulnerable there was also the option to block. The moves were actually tailored to the star you played as too, meaning the stars had realistic moves based on their real life move set. The style of game wasn't actually a bad idea and the turn based, trading card style actually fitted the WWE product. Unfortunately, it was barely what you could call a game. In an older article I likened it more to a PowerPoint presentation as the game threw slides on screen based on what moves you decided to carry out. The other main problem is that it barely worked. Despite the wealth of options presented as attacks, it was a rare occasion when a choice actually happened like it was supposed to. Years later in 2001, a similar game was released that took the trading card approach and did it a whole lot better. "WWF With Authority," was almost like the Ultimate Team mode that the FIFA games now have with every new release. In that sense, Micro League Wrestling could be considered somewhat ahead of its time. That however, will be no consolation to anyone who wasted their time on this mostly unplayable, tedious game.