Namco’s Pole Position is one of the most influential racing games ever made. It was a true pioneer and giant of the 80’s arcade. But 40 years have passed since then, and the primitive growl of that lamenting engine has become a distant whisper. In fact, his 40th anniversary has passed in a blink of an eye.
Because there was pole position before Out Run, before Ridge Racer, and before Hard Drivin’, Virtua Racing, Daytona USA and all the racers considered the current kingpins of the driving genre today.
Originally, racing arcade games were electromechanical. It’s mentally similar to a video game where you rob them later, but it was driven by a physics component. Early examples, such as 1941’s Drive-Mobile, had players maneuvering a toy car left and right on a painted rotating drum, while 1959’s Mini Drive (published by Japanese arcade game maker Kasco) ) asked the player to navigate a toy car along a rotating conveyor belt. However, in the late 1960s, Casco and Sega put a new spin on electromechanical arcade racing, introducing video projection elements at Casco’s Indy 500 and Sega’s Grand Prix. Namco responded with a series of its own products: Racer in 1970, Formula-X in 1973 and F-1 in 1976.
The elliptical racecourse and the competitors are projected on the screen, Lamps, painted rotating discs and small mounted car modelsthese games may seem primitive by modern standards, but they ultimately laid the foundation for the look and feel of video games, which they later successfully emulated (indeed, electromechanical Formula racing games were quickly made obsolete by games like Pole Position).
Pole Position isn’t the first car racing video game to hit arcades. Many notable examples precede that. For example, 1974’s Atari’s top-down Gran Track 10 (featuring white car-shaped blobs running through ribbons of dots) might not look like much, but it’s considered the first ever car-racing video game. I’m here. Atari’s first-person Night Driver followed in 1976 alongside his Sega’s Road Race. Sega’s Monaco GP in 1979 and his 1980 Namco Rally X were important racers in their own right, as was Sega’s colorful and innovative Turbo in 1981.
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Created by Galaxian designer Kazunori Sawano, Tank Battalion designer Shinichiro Okamoto, and Sho Osugi, who was behind Namco’s electromechanical racers in the ’70s, Pole Position changed the racing game. Thanks to a revolutionary 16-bit microprocessor, Racing was unlike any of his games to date, with very advanced graphics for its time and even synthetic voice.
Lots of exclamation points show they’re serious about curves.
Eschewing a top-down approach, the Pole Position perspective placed the player directly behind the car, establishing the now ubiquitous chasing cam view associated with racing games. It’s certainly fair to argue that the Turbo’s trailing third-person view is also noteworthy here, but the Turbo’s camera was mounted much higher and farther than the pole position view.
Pole Position was also the first racing video game to feature a real-life track, the Fuji Speedway. At that point, it recently hosted the dramatic finale of the now-iconic 1976 F1 season. There James Hunt won the championship with a single off Niki Lauda. point. The flat and simple layout, surrounded by lush green grass, bears little resemblance to the real thing, but having Mt. Fuji in the background was enough. This was the first time I requested a . To qualify for the race itself, you had to finish in about 70 seconds.
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This is where pole position stumbles slightly, especially through modern lenses. Paul his position, which quickly punishes the slightest wrong move, was an infamous experience with the original non-self-aligning wheels and is emulated as such on modern controllers as well.Even designer Sho Osugi himself previously admitted that i thought it was very difficultwhich is like sitting down and watching Twin Peaks with David Lynch and having him turn to you and admit that he’s a little confused.
Qualifying for the race itself was very difficult as one wrong move exploded.
We could probably also get a little foothold in in-game advertising, which Pole Position was a very early proponent of. Pole Position Fuji was filled with billboards for real-world kid-friendly brands like Marlboro and Martini. Smoke and aperitif. In all fairness to Namco, it’s surprising he didn’t have to put an ashtray in his car, as this era of his Formula 1 is synonymous with cigarette sponsorship. Luckily, my parents in the ’80s were probably too preoccupied with Satan hiding messages on heavy metal records, so they didn’t realize Namco would fill the trailblazing racers with alcohol and cigarette ads. was not
Those corners are so tight that I can see you..
First released in Japan on September 16, 1982, the Pole Position arrived in the US (where it was distributed by Atari) and Europe later that year. It was an instant hit. Pole Position was not only the highest-grossing arcade game in Japan in 1982, but it was also a huge hit worldwide. Earning millions of dollars weekly in the United States alone, Paul held his position in 1983 and he became the highest-grossing arcade game in North America in 1984. We’ve skimmed the gongs for the most played video games and the most popular arcade games. and the most played pool table to secure the latter. It’s a billiard table. He also just turned 40.
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Pole Position quickly migrated to home systems such as the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64, followed by sequels, board games, and a short-lived 13-episode cartoon series. If you paid attention, it was about F1 racing, not a family of criminals with talking cars. Pole Position carried over to the Final Lap series at Namco, and Pole Position ended up making occasional appearances on Namco’s arcade compilation packages.
It may have been a little arrogant for Namco to name a racer after a spot that can only be earned by being faster and better than everyone else, but back in 1982 pole position didn’t deserve it. It is difficult to argue that
Luke is a game editor in IGN’s Sydney office. You can chat with him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.
