Pole Position
The engine roars, the starting light goes out and a winding track stretches out before you – Pole Position brought the feeling of real Formula racing into living rooms long before it became a given. This arcade hit and its home conversions rank among the most influential racing games of all time.
The game introduced a concept that later became the standard: the view behind the car, the track vanishing in perspective toward the horizon and the need to take corners at the right speed so you don't get thrown off the road or crash into rivals. Before the race itself, you also have to earn your starting position on a qualifying lap – which is where the game's name comes from, incidentally. This two-phase structure was innovative for its time and gave the racing depth.
The original arcade version came from Japan's Namco, and in North America it was distributed by Atari. It became one of the most successful and highest-grossing arcade machines of its era, and its influence on the entire genre is immeasurable – practically every later racing game with a behind-the-car view owes it something. The home conversion for the Atari 8-bit brought this experience straight into players' homes.
On the 8-bit Atari it was of course impossible to reproduce the arcade hardware exactly, but the conversion tried to preserve the spirit of the original – the brisk pace, the sense of speed and that characteristic winding track. For computer owners it was a chance to experience a piece of arcade history without having to scrounge up coins for the machine.
Today Pole Position is seen as a milestone that helped define the modern racing game. Its simple yet catchy principle and historical significance make it a title that every fan of retro and racing games should know.
Why play: A founding racing classic that defined the genre and brought the feeling of Formula racing straight into the living room.
Game 25 of 124 for Atari 800 / 8-bit
The same title elsewhere (4)
The Pole Position arcade cabinet ran on Atari's own custom graphics board and defined what cockpit-view racing should look like. The Atari 800 home computers and the Atari 5200 console shared a similar chip family with the arcade board (GTIA and POKEY), which makes their conversions among the more faithful ports of the era — capturing a similar sense of speed and engine sound, though with lower track resolution and simpler background graphics than in the arcades. Differences between the Atari 800 and 5200 versions are mostly cosmetic, since both draw on the same hardware family. For Pole Position at its best, go for the arcade cabinet; for a solid home experience, either Atari version delivers.
