Reviews

Released in 1983, this game by Microsphere has the player as a motorcyclist. You must ride your powerful sports bike with precision and often much speed - avoiding various dangers - inexplicably large wildlife out to crush you or knock you off your bike, patches of ice, and bits of Evel Knevel's outfit - jumps over buses and cars. Additionally, the player must not run out of fuel. There are various places in the map where fuel is provided. Once you reach the end of the level, you must race the Ghostrider back. Rather unfairly, the Ghostrider gets to avoid all the nasties, after all - he is a ghost and can ride through walls, buses, and overgrown hedgehogs.

The game is presented as a multi level side scroller. Hills slow and speed the bike, and riding fast uses up fuel much more quickly than riding slow. Take a jump at the wrong speed, and you can crash on landing, or not make it across the obstacles. A quick burst of acceleration will make your bike wheelie, so you can get across some of the bumps in the map, that pitch you off the bike if your front tyre hits it.

The action is fast, and the controls are responsive - Wheelie was definitely one of the best 1983 releases for the Spectrum - not just graphically appealing but with great replayability. It's also a challenging game - it takes quite a bit of practise before you can get through the first level the first time - ensuring that for seasoned players, the first level isn't just a boring milk run which you must pass.

Wheelie was also notable for appearing in Skool Daze - apparently Boy Wonder enjoyed the game greatly, often writing "I LOVE WHEELIE" on the blackboards...

1983 by Microsphere (UK)

One of the best games ever released to the Speccy! Hard to imagine this was made in '83.
Smooth game control, great motorcycling action!
Guide your four cylinder fuel-injected turbo-charged Zedexaki 500 thru Nightmare Park where you are trapped. Your only way out is to find the ghostrider and win a race against him on each level until you find your way out.
Just great!!

By the way is the author of this game also a ghost? Does anyone know who wrote the early Microsphere games?

Good game with great atmosphere !

Great sensation of speed and acceleration.

Weird scenarios with brilliant colors.

A classic from the early days of the Spectrum.

All in all I woudn´t give this game 5 points. It was too difficult for my taste !! LOL

I will put this into the category of it would have been much better if I played it sooner. It looks and feels very impressive for 1983 so much credit there for that, you just need patience for it and I don't have that so it doesn't meet my tastes.

Wheelie is a funny and curious game. Made at a time when the limits of the machine were not being discovered, but simply discovering what it could and could not be done.




Personally, I don't see it as revolutionary as others say it is, even despite being from a time when there was a lot to discover. But it certainly deserves a mention. Especially since its author is none other than Skool Daze ' s.



And those are already great words. It says it all.
Just to serve as a springboard (like the ones you have to negotiate with the motorcycle to propel yourself and jump on those buses, hedgehogs ...) for Skool Daze it deserves to be remembered.

Wheelie is NOT an historical game per se. But it served as they said for their programmer to hone his technical ability to create one of the best masterpieces out there.
keep in mind it's Boy Wander's favorite game!!

For today we are going to see 2 unforgettable games of Microsphere(author, David S. Reidy).
This is very good.






But it is still simple.
Perhaps excessively for some, but I appreciate the simplicity in games.
And this 'one of them
.

At the end of the day, few things are easier (to players' taste) than riding a motorcycle through some corridors, without trying to save the world.
The pity is that it has a bit (quite to be honest) of flickering, I don't know if it will always be like that or because of the emulator, but otherwise it is more than enough to be a more than correct digital entertainment.



...Notwithstanding the above, the most important thing as they already said, preparing the work for the next game, which this one, was a key work for Sinclair softography