SKIDMARKS ON YOUR SOUL
F1 Driver (off): HEEEEEEY!!
Father: Yeah?
F1 Driver (off): You look like a real jerk!
Father: But I am a Corporate Executive.
Wife: He's got exciting things from happening.
F1 Driver (off): So, whatcha' doin'?
Father: Well, Muffy-buffy, Biff, Junior and I are going on a Sunday Drive.
F1 Driver: Oh, no, you ain't. You're gonna play ¡¡¡POLE POSITIOOOOOOON!!!
After their debut on Arcade Archives, Namco kept oldschoolers waiting a damn long time for this one, the classic F1 racing Pole Position series.
Right now, let's talk about the first Pole Position.
Pole Position from Namco and Hamster.
It'll bust your Switch, and leave skidmarks on your PlayStation.
Pole Position is more than just racing. The idea is not just to reach the goal on time and evading passing cars increases your rank, it is about qualifying. Screwing up will result on running endlessly until time runs out, effectively forcing you to try again from the beginning. The execution of the driving controls was an innovation since unlike previous F1 games like Sega's Turbo and Namco's own F-1 game, the steering wheel of Pole Position had a very special calibration being as close as possible to the real F1 race cars of the 80's, and so the physics of the race track. Unlike the rest, Pole Position had a gear shifter to change the transmission manually from low to high. This was required to gain speed. To understand it, it goes like this: Driving in "Low" will keep your car at a maximum of 170-180Km/H, so after reaching 160Km/H you'll have to switch to "High" to gain more speed, but you can't go recklessly at full speed. Any collision with billboards or other cars will take time away as your car explodes.
Let's see if you have what it takes for the Grand Prix, kid.
But if you are good enough to qualify for the Grand Prix (less than 58 seconds), the qualifying race will end and you'll be on a starting grid position for the next race based on how long it took you to qualify. If you are skillful and fast enough to get the Pole Position you'll be getting a 4000 bonus points.
Four laps...
One replenishable minute...
Room for Error: ZERO.
When you're on the main race, this is where the real game begins. Like que the qualifying race, you have to reach the goal, but this time you're only required to do four laps, all of them before the time hits zero. Also, it will be more difficult than before as there's gonna be water puddles that if you pass through them you'll lose control and that would be the difference between completing one more lap or losing the race. Along with the "Race against the clock" premise, there's a new mechanic as well: Getting bonus by passing cars. Each car you pass grants you bonus points kinda like in Sega's Turbo, and the more you get, the greater the bonus will be. Is a short and fun game, but requires total focus and control mastery almost immediately.
As an arcade game, Pole Position was a champion on the category of arcade fun due to its revolutionary gameplay and innovative cabinets, because it wasn't just your traditional upright cabinet, there was the "Environmental Cockpit" where the player sits while controlling the car, becoming the choice of most operators back then due to the realism given by this type of cabinets. Sega's Turbo and Atari's Star Wars were the best examples of "Pre-Simulators". Speaking of Atari, Pole Position was distributed by them, just like they distributed F-1 back in the 70's (I guess that makes Atari more of Namco's "American Arm" than Midway). The arcade success of this game had one possible outcome for home ports: Being ported to many consoles and computers as possible. From the Atari Video Computer system to the Vic-20, BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and even the MS-DOS. Ironically, it didn't had a NES or Sega Master System release considering how other Namco games like Pac-Man and Dig Dug got a NES port, but it was released on the majority of Namco Museum's titles, and recently on Arcade Archives.
For some reason, Hamster and Namco decided to use the original Japanese ROM, this means the game will obviously have Namco's copyright instead of Atari, being the voice samples the major difference as the announcer says "Yosen Staato" ("Qualifying Start", translated by Atari as "Prepare to Qualify") and "Yosen tsuka! Guranpuri Staato" ("Qualifying Pass! Grand Prix start", the Atari/Namco "World" release said "Good driving, you qualified to race!" while the text said "Prepare to Race"). One thing that I've noticed of the Arcade Archives port is that you can adjust the sensibility of the controls if you think they feel slippery. Recreating the steering wheel's physics is not an easy task, and that's something game developers from Namco, Square (Highway Star/Rad Racer), Sega (Out Run, Turbo, Super Monaco GP) to Sony (Gran Turismo) and Microsoft (Forza Motorsport) know perfectly well, and they recreate the calibration to be on-par with the D-Pad (Directional Pad) or the Analog Stick. I don't know if this game is compatible with third party steering wheel, so if you have information about it, please let me know. Back to reviewing the controls, the Arcade Archives version puts the pedals as the L2 and R2 buttons just like the aircraft speed controls in Ace Combat, and the gear shift is with Square and X. As for the emulation, the game runs pretty damn well.
Giving new features to an old game.
While the Original and Hi-Score Modes are the same game, Caravan Mode makes something a little different this time. Since an expert can complete the game in less than 5 minutes, Hamster and Namco changed the format into a "Make as much laps as possible within 5 minutes". With enough luck you can make 8 laps. Also you'll be starting directly in the Grand Prix phase of the game at the first position. If you're having trouble getting the trophies in Original and Hi-Score, you've might get the 30,000 point trophy there with no problem.
Graphically, Pole Position ditches the movie projector lamp optics from F-1 to adapt the Formula 1 racing into the pixel screen and it does the job quite well, as it makes a great work on the pixel scaling with a more "Cleaner" zooming than Turbo. It also changes the perspective view of the game by making a close 3rd person view rather than a far zoomed out one just like Sega did with Turbo, also ditching the cockpit view of F-1. The car's colors however look kinda strange with that red-blue-purple-gray combination, but the animations for the car's when they turn are pretty well made. The scenery takes its own amount of detail, being the "gradient" sky a nice detail that adds depth and "time" rather than being flat blue or black. The red-white linings on the track increase the sense of movement and speed as they "scroll" based on how fast your car is moving. Simple details that made an everything in this game, proving that a race game can be done without the projector trick and of course, reducing the cabinet's size.
Was that "Shoot Away" ad back in '82?
I don't remember seeing it before.
The use of the Japanese audio in the Arcade Archives release is not too much of a problem, but the major change between either vintage Namco, vintage Atari and Hamster-BNEI Arcade Archives release is the advertising signs on the track. The Japanese version had blatant product placements for S.E.V. Marchal, Martini & Rossi, Pepsi, Marlboro, Champion, Canon and Agip, along with a gray Goodyear "Wingfoot One" blimp written as "Gooyer". the Atari version replaced them with an Atari blimp and signs for USA (the country, not the TV channel), Atari, Namco: Amusement Creator, Pole Position, Centipede and Dig Dug (which was distributed by them). The Namco Museum 1 release had a Namco blimp and replaced the signs with Dig Dug, The Tower of Druaga and varied Namco propaganda featuring Pac-Man and the fan-favorite "But Clyde!" from Pole Position II. The last sign change was on Namco Museum Virtual Arcade where the game "Advertised" Shoot Away (distributed by Bally), Libble Rabble, Warp & Warp (Warp Warp by Rock Ola), the "Cat Chase Game" featuring the Mewkies from Mappy, Galaxian and Xevious, so the statement of "This game uses the Japanese ROM for the main part of the game" should be more like "This game uses the Namco Museum Virtual Arcade ROM for the main part of the game".
While some will agree to have the game without ads and others don't, Pole Position's case is an unique exception since it was one of the first games to feature product placements (being Tapper the first arcade videogame to do that), earning a simultaneous "Famous-Infamous" place in gaming history, but I'm sure the product placement was added to give the game a sense of reality to the racetrack rather than being a shameless commercial. Also, the original game took place on Fuji Speedway to increase the "Real World" feeling of the racing game. The later releases of the game removed the Fuji Speedway name and even changed the layout in the title calling it "Blue" or simply "Namco Speedway" due to trademark reasons. Ironically, the signs of Tower of Druaga and Xevious are an anachronism since they were games from 1983. Along with the "Its Pac-Mom in Pac-Land all over again" feeling, this is also like the re-release of Super Hang-On where Bridgestone was replaced with Fantasy Zone and M2's re-release of Shinobi where Marilyn Monroe's portraits were replaced with the werewolf from Altered Beast. ¿Why a werewolf? I don't know, I guess it was because both were from "Team Shinobi".
Speaking of ads and commercials, the game is also remembered for the MTV-exclusive Atari commercial where a family is on a Sunday drive and after the father gets yelled, called a jerk and asked what he and his family were doing by a passing F1 driver, all of a sudden God's hand takes them out of their car dropping them on F1 cars to race against each other and other drivers. The family car is a total ruin, but they don't seem to care as the whole family gets their own rides with the expected reactions from each member of the family: The kids are fascinated with their new rides, the mom's horrified with the situation and dad enters in "Sports Fan Mode" and tries his best driving the fast machine he was pitted in. In the end they hilariously crash ending up in a dark junkyard while the announcer said "It will bust your crank, and leave skidmarks on your soul". For a commercial, it felt like a short music video more than an ad and really encouraged the sales of a game since it was aired on a highly popular channel like MTV. A wise move from Atari if you ask me.
As for the sound, the music is only applied for the starting and qualify fanfares along with the name entry themes, leaving the game music-less and with the "VRRRRRRrrrmmmmRRRRRMMM!!" of the engine all the time. It was interesting to see how the game implemented voiced samples. While not as clear than Grobda or Bosconian, it worked fine for the announcer who said "Prepare to Qualify" and believe it or not, the muffled voice sample added more realism as if it was heard on the old speakers of a real race track. Real world race track, real world sponsors, and real world speaker effect. Namco (and Atari) made an incredible work with this game.
Back then, arcades put the music for the game. So lemme make you a list of tunes for Pole Position:
Oh Romeo - These Memories
Devo - Girl U Want
Alien - Video Games (Gets in your brain)
Judas Priest - Turbo Lover
Judas Priest - Reckless
POLE POSITIONED CURIOSITIES
- The name of the game comes from the term used to refer the first place on the starting grid.
- Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani chose the name because it was "cool" and appealing.
- Pole Position was the first game to feature a real world racetrack.
- It became the highest grossing game of both 1983 and 1984.
- In 1985, it was one of the top five arcade games of that year.
- For a game with product placements, the game placed them WITHOUT PAYING the sponsors (what an irony). The same happened with F-1 which had Pepsi billboards.
- Pole Position was one of the Atari games that got MTV exclusive commercials together with Joust and Centipede.
- "It will bust your crank and leave skidmarks on your soul" became a meme-like quote to refer this game.
- Despite using the same name (licensed from Namco), DiC's Pole Position cartoon was very astray of the game's original premise.
- The blatant display of Namco games billboards in all the re-releases (Both Pole Position titles) is very reminiscent of Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, where the player (as Shion Uzuki) gets UMN-mails from Namco advertising Ninja Assault and Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies.
Just Livin' on the Atari Edge.
Good old school arcade memories.
Despite the controversial billboard changes and the omission of the english voice samples due to the use of the Japanese game (despite Namco having its own English release with Atari's voice samples), Pole Position remains as the good ol' classic racing game that brought a revolution on the racing genre implementing more real-world based mechanics beyond any other arcade competitor of the time.
As usual, classics get the positive results, and the Eda Scale is no exception.
