Pole Position

Pole Position is a racing video game released in 1982 by Namco, the creators of Pac-Man. In Pole Position, the player has to complete a lap in a certain amount of time in order to qualify for an F1 race at the Fuji Racetrack. more...

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After qualifying, the player has to face other cars in a championship race.

For release in the United States, Namco approached Bally Midway with a choice of two games in 1982. Bally Midway chose Mappy while Atari was forced to go with Pole Position — which turned out to be the most popular game of 1983.

Sequels

Pole Position II was released in 1983, and adds to the original Fuji track three additional courses: Test (resembling Indianapolis), Seaside (resembling Long Beach), and Suzuka. It features slightly improved graphics, as well as a different starting tune.

While many considered the three-screened racer TX-1, released in 1984 by Atari and designed by Tatsumi to be a sequel to Pole Position II, the true sequel arrived in 1987 with the release of Final Lap, which may be considered an unofficial Pole Position III.

Ports

In the late 1990s Pole Position made a comeback on the Sony PlayStation system, alongside Pac-Man and other Namco games, in a game collection named Namco Museum. Since then, Pole Position has been included in most Namco Museum releases, such as on the Playstation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Xbox.

Legacy

Pole Position was the leading game in arcades worldwide due to its breathtakingly realistic graphics at the time. It wasn't the first game to use the "rear-view racer format" (examples include Night Driver by Atari and Turbo (released the same year as Pole Position) by Sega), but it did pioneer the format which is used in many games today, and many imitators of the format appeared after its release, most notably Sega's Out Run in 1986.

Screenshot gallery

Advertising

The game has also become synonymous with the original television commercial promoting the game which surfaced again on Youtube.

There is also an animated series titled Pole Position, but has no connection whatsoever with this game (the series' producer presumably had to pay a royalty to use the title).

This game was one of, if not the first instance of product placement in a video game. A complete list of billboards (including those specific to the U.S. release) can be found here.

Trivia

The name of a strip club in Grand Theft Auto Vice City was dubbed "Pole Position".; The Atari 2600 version of the game was featured in the movie D.A.R.Y.L. (1985);

Read more at Wikipedia.org