Pole Position II

Pole Position II is a racing arcade game that was released by Namco in 1983 as the sequel to Pole Position, which was released the previous year. As with the original, Namco licensed Pole Position II to Atari for US manufacture and distribution. Atari also released Pole Position II as the pack-in game for their Atari 7800 Prosystem console.

There is a new opening theme, and in addition to the original Fuji racetrack, there are three others to choose from: Test (resembling Indianapolis Motor Speedway), Seaside (resembling 1982 United States Grand Prix West circuit in Long Beach), and Suzuka. The graphics were improved; cars have a different color scheme and explosions show debris. Wheel spin has also been added to the game. One notable difference between the Japanese and U.S. versions is that while the timer is displayed as "TIME" in the Japanese version (as with the previous game), it is displayed as "UNIT" in the U.S. release.

Pole Position II appears in various Namco Museum collections, but presumably due to licensing issues, Fuji Speedway and Suzuka Circuit were renamed Namco Circuit and Wonder Circuit (after Namco's "Wonder" series of Japanese theme parks), respectively. In Namco Museum Virtual Arcade, they were renamed Blue and Orange respectively.

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