Ludography
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Pole Position II cover

1983 · Namco · Arcade · Racing

Pole Position II

Just like the first game, but with improved graphics and 4 different tracks to choose.

Released
1983
Platforms
ArcadeAtari 7800Commodore 64Commodore C64/128/MAXMS-DOSNintendo SwitchSuper Cassette Vision
Genres
ArcadeRacing
Developers
Namco
Publishers
Namco
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Third person
Themes
ActionNon-fiction
Country
Japan
Languages
English

About

Pole Position II is a 1983 racing video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. It is the sequel to the 1982 game Pole Position. Atari, Inc. released the game in North America.

Atari also released a port as the pack-in game for its Atari 7800 ProSystem in 1986. Pole Position arcade machines can be converted to Pole Position II by swapping several chips.

Keywords

  • 2.5d
  • high score
  • race cars
  • explosion
  • realism
  • sports cars

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Pole Position II as the second most successful upright/cockpit arcade cabinet of November 1983, before topping the charts in December 1983. It was later Japan's third highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game of 1986 (below Sega's Hang-On and Space Harrier), and the fifth highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game of 1987.

In the United States, Pole Position II topped the RePlay arcade chart for software conversion kits in December 1983, with the original Pole Position topping the upright cabinet chart the same month. It topped the RePlay software conversion kit charts for six months into 1984, through January, February, March and April up until May. It also topped the Play Meter conversion kit charts for street locations during July–August 1984. Pole Position II became the highest-grossing arcade game of 1984 in the United States, just above the original Pole Position, which was previously the highest-grossing arcade game of 1983. Pole Position II was later one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1985, and the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1986.

Legacy

Pole Position II has been re-released as part of various Namco Museum compilations, but the two active permanent circuits were removed (because of licensing issues with both Toyota, which owns Fuji Speedway, and Honda, which owns Suzuka Circuit, but no licensing issues with the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach) and similar looking circuits, Namco Circuit and Wonder Circuit (after Namco's Wonder series of Japanese theme parks) were added respectively. In Namco Museum Virtual Arcade, they were renamed Blue and Orange respectively, even though neither track features the colors, although the layouts were similar.

In 2006, Namco Networks released Pole Position II for mobile phones.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Arcade31 December 1983North America · Japan 31 December 1983
Atari 780031 December 1986North America
Commodore C64/128/MAX31 December 1989North America
MS-DOS31 December 1989North America

Editions and related releases

Included in
Namco Museum Vol. 3Namco Museum 50th AnniversaryNamco MuseumNamco Museum Virtual Arcade
Ported as
Arcade Archives: Pole Position IIPole Position II
Built on it
Pole Position II

Games like this

Collections7 collections

Platform libraries

Publishers

Genres

Reception and records

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.