Arcade Archives Pole Position

Genre: Faux 3D Racing

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Pole Position is a Faux 3D Racing game released in arcades in 1982, then ported to numerous other platforms afterwards. This game is a historical landmark in the Racing game genre, not only influencing numerous other faux 3D Racing games of the era, but also arguably important in setting a landmark with which to compare to “true” 3D Racing games that would come later.

It’s impressive to look at this game and see what developers were capable of squeezing out of technology over 40 years ago, and while of course this game’s visuals aren’t on par with what we have available to us today, it’s hard not to respect the accomplishment this game represents. There’s even a completely unintelligible digitized voice clip too!

However, there’s only so much I can marvel at the game’s once-impressive technological accomplishments before I have to start talking about the gameplay and… yeah, this game hasn’t aged well. By modern standards this is extremely unforgiving and it takes a lot of getting used to the controls. Odds are good that your average play session won’t last for more than a half a minute of collisions and failing to stay on the road during turns before the game boots you out for failing to meet time benchmarks.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to get as far as they can in one run. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

And then there’s the price. At $8, Pole Position is simply a hard sell to anyone but those wanting to own a piece of history, or perhaps those who have nostalgia for the game all these years later. Perhaps they might find some value in this release, but most players are much better off skipping it.

tl;dr – Pole Position is a landmark Faux 3D Racing Game that is an important piece of videogame history. It is also a game that plays terribly by today’s standards, and its $8 price tag seems horribly high. Unless you’re a collector and money is no object for you, don’t buy this one.

Grade: D

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