Arcade Archives Pole Position II

Genre: Faux 3D Racing

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Pole Position II, much like its predecessor, is a Faux 3D Racing game. This sequel was released in arcades in 1983, then ported to numerous other platforms afterwards. While not the landmark game that the prior title was, Pole Position II improves on the first game by having four times the content, with four tracks to race on compared to the first game’s one track.

I suppose that as with the original game, it’s impressive to look at this game and see what developers were capable of squeezing out of technology over 40 years ago, although this isn’t quite the same achievement as it’s basically just copying what the first game already did, and of course this game’s visuals aren’t on par with what we have available to us today.

And much like the first game, when it comes to gameplay, 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 II is far too steep for such an old game, and unlike its predecessor this game can’t even claim to have the same sort of historical significance to make it worthwhile to collectors. And while it is certainly a better game, than the first one, that doesn’t mean that it’s a good one, or one worth buying.

tl;dr – Pole Position II is a Faux 3D Racing Game that takes the gameplay of its predecessor and adds four tracks to race on. It is also a game that plays terribly by today’s standards, and its $8 price tag seems horribly high. Even though it’s an improvement over the first game, it’s still not actually good, and I don’t recommend it.

Grade: D

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