Pole Position II (Arcade)

Pole Position II
Developer: Namco Publishers: Namco (JP), Atari, Inc. (US) Platform: Arcade (Namco Pole Position hardware) Released in JP: December 1983 Released in US: November 1983 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences.

To do: Just like with the first game, the Arcade Archives release changed all of the billboards, seemingly to the same ones used in Namco Museum Virtual Arcade. All console ports should have comparisons between the billboard graphics.

Pole Position II is the sequel to Pole Position. Differences include a choice of 4 tracks, cars being in a different color, some graphical changes, and the addition of a few new techniques for expert drivers. Apart from that, it is similar to the first game and so is much of this article.

Developer Credits

To do: Get a screenshot.

Switch gears when the last two digits of your score are 40. Switch again at 30, then at 20, and finally 10. Text will cover the screen crediting five Namco staff members. The text will remain up until the game is ended.

(Source: Gustavo Del Dago)

Regional Differences

Title Screen

Namco	Atari

The Namco logo was removed and replaced with just text. They also added a trademark symbol on the right side next to the logo.

Graphics

Fun fact: The game uses palette trickery to allow two designs to be stored in the same graphic.

Namco	Atari

The blimp flying the banner at the start of the race was changed from a Namco one to a plain one.

Namco	Atari

The Dunlop Bridge was replaced by a generic bridge.

Billboards

All the signs on the side of the road were changed in some way. The Namco version uses product placement from various outside companies and mostly kept the same ones as the original game. The Atari version replaces all this with its own product placement.

Namco	Atari
S.E.V. Marchal	Pole Position II
Marlboro	Dentyne
Agip	Tang
Pepsi	Namco
Champion	7 Eleven
Martini & Rossi	No alcohol
Blinky from Pac-Man	No replacement sign
Honda Racing	No replacement sign
Canon	Atari

The "But Clyde!" banner is taken from the "Picnic in Pacland" episode of the Pac-Man animated series.

Gameplay

The Namco version is measured by TIME, while in the Atari version it is measured by UNIT.

Revisional Differences

To do: Get a screenshot of the changed map layouts and names from Namco Museum Virtual Arcade on Xbox 360, as it changes Fuji/Namco to "BLUE" and Suzuka/Wonder to "ORANGE". Get announcer voice clips from the originals as well as many of the console ports as they sound vastly different from each other.

Original	Namco Museum Vol. 3	Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary	Namco Museum Arcade HITS!

Like with the first game, the original release featured a recreation of the also famous Suzuka Circuit alongside the original's Fuji Speedway, plus two additional circuits: Test, based on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Seaside, based on the 1982 version of the Long Beach street circuit. As with the original, its Namco Museum Vol. 3 port and subsequent versions featured similar alterations, with Suzuka receiving a new layout and being renamed to Wonder. Once again, Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary uses the original track layouts with the new names, while the Japanese version uses both the new layouts and names. Namco Musem Arcade HITS! uses English text despite both the original arcade version and Namco Museum Vol. 3 having Japanese text on their respective Japanese releases.

Namco Museum Vol. 3 uses a larger font for the English text, matching the Japanese version. It has been rewritten to reflect the new control scheme, a change not maintained for any future release. The English font used for Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary and Arcade HITS! is mostly the same as in the original release, but lacks periods.

The credit count only has a leading zero in Namco Museum Vol. 3.

Continuing a difference seen in the original Pole Position, the Namco Museum Vol. 3 and Arcade HITS! versions have different maps for the redesigned tracks, more noticeably with Wonder Circuit, which greatly tones down the chicanes near the beginning.