ARCADE ACTION

ARCADE ACTION

THE MONTH'S WINNERS

(Arcade Action's winning games, listed in order of popularity, are the 10 most-played games in the country as VIDIOT goes to press.)

P. GREGORY SPRINGER

1. POLE POSITION

2. POPEYE

3. JOUST

4. Q*BERT

5. JUNGLE HUNT

6. MOON PATROL

7. TIME PILOT

8. FRONT LINE

9. BABY PAC-MAN

10.SUPER PAC-MAN

POLE POSITION - Prepare to Qualify! You won't, if you don't get 73 seconds or better on the time trials. Pole Position whipped Turbo off the scorecard this month, jumping right up into the ratings as #1. Mt. Fuji patiently waits in the background scenery of the Grand Prix, probably the only peaceful thing about the game. The machine-gun shaped Fuji Speedway offers stiff competition for all driving. Your speed is recorded at the top of the board if you dare take your eyes off the road to look, but the peak speed is noted at the end of the race. For those who don't maneuver so well, in either the stand-up version or the engrossing sit-down booth, the temptation is to drive away from the 2.709 mile track and head up into those springtime mountains in the background. Can you do it? Nah. Although the graphics of Pole Position are cleverly kinetic, allowing the car to veer off the road (with bumperstrip sounds to match), there's a limit to the horizon. And the inevitable crash is a spinning, humiliating destruction of smokp and fury. If you can handle hairtrigger steering wheel control, you'll impress most jalopy drivers around, as well as the husky-voiced female who announces at the starting line. It's a fast track, with best players clocking in under 4 minutes total, but the run for the money is intense, realistic, and gutwrenching.

POPEYE - Brutus changes his clothes from scene to scene, so he can't be too disgusting, despite his beer gut and the leftover six-packs he hurtles at our hero, Popeye. With spinach and pipe, Pop pursues love tokens from his skinny sweetheart, including tossed hearts, love songs, and pleas for help. Meanwhile, Brutus belches his way between Popeye and Olive's neighboring houses, trying break up the match. Later on in the scenario, they battle it out aboard nautical ship. Such triangles are made only in the comic strips, and Popeye must catch Olive's hearts before they sit at the bottom of the screen and break, a potential catastrophe as painful and final as a punch to the jaw. Brutus moves with more energy than he should for his size and disposition, tossing and prancing and groping underneath the playing plane. A witch tosses bouncing skulls, too. So Popeye must be nimble and eat spinach, crunch the can on Brutus's head, clobber the flying skulls and beer bottles, and wobble up stairs and masts to capture the passion of the old Knob Knees herself. This famous affair of the heart, unfortunately, is almost a private one, since the decorated border of the screen bars onlookers from the action. Only the player gets a glimpse. But with all those favorite characters around, famliarity breeds content. It's cute as the dickens and Fred Flintstone can't be far behind.