| POLE POSITION |
  Pole Position I & II are two of my favorite Arcade games of all time. These were the arcade games I cut my arcade teeth on as I love the late 80's arcade due to all of the driving games. The Pole Position games are among some of the HARDEST to emulate due to how advanced they were in their time, and how complicated they are. Go watch Joe's Classic Gaming Garage channel (same one what fixed LGR's arcade game) work on one, it's pretty interesting. Anyway, in 1983, Atari decided to release a 2600 port of it, annd it does pretty darned good. It's another one I put in the same category of E.T., there's a finesse to the controls that the classic "box o' Atari Games" plug n' go scenario just does not work with.
Pole Position was such a popular arcade title it spawned a sequel latter on called Pole Position II, which was personally my favorite, but was never ported to the 2600, only the 7800 SuperSystem in 1987. That said, the home console versions pale compared to the arcade originals, but what do you expect, that was gaming in the 80's. DIC/Saban entertainment, foreshadowing the future with NIntendo products, released a cartoon show called Pole Position sometime around 83'-84' where a pair of teenagers in game-color coordinatede cars which are not Formula 1's as in thegame, but rather a red 65' Mustang and a futuristic blue coupe. From the Arcade to the Kay (Bee Toys) - My Experiences So as a kid, being in a predominantly female family, I'd be dragged to the mall to suffer the clothing stores, bored out of my wits, and restricted from enjoying anything that seemed fun in the store. What this was supposed to teach me, I dunno, I think all it taught me was how to be a boring sourpuss myself. Anyway, sometimes I'd beg and beg and get to wander off to the arcade with a few dollars for tokens and of course, my #1 goto machinees were all car games, some Baja game I forget the name of, Sega Turbo, Outrun and Turbo Outrun, and of course, Pole Position I and II were my favorites, with II being the real favorite. We were lucky, we had the SIT DOWN versions of these games, so I could sit down inside the cabinet, and feel like I was in a real vehicle, and not just standing at some box with a pedal and a steering wheel attached. But I also remember the controls were excellent. So here I am, 8, with my first console,, and Kay-Bee is liquidating everything Atari in their store because Nintendo was the smash hit with Sega up and coming. So of course, I could buy games all day long for a buck to a few bucks, and one of these was Pole Position. I took it home, and was dissappointed with it. Poor graphics, crappy steering, mecahnics that did not feel "natural" to me, you had to push up or down to accelerate/brake, and those CX-40 joysticks are bloody stiff. But it was better than Night Driver, or worse yet, nothing. Then I revisited it as an adult and I quite well love this one now. It does feel like the Arcade, I just did not know as a kid, because I did not know where to set my expectationos moving from an arcade cabinet with an actual steering wheel and pedals annd gearshift, to a joystick controller with one button. Now it's pretty easy for me and I'm quite used to it. I guess with age comes wisdom (or better motor skills and iron wrists). VIDEOS |
