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Players of one of the year's most popular arcade machines can now sneak in an extra practice lap at home.

Following the release of Pole Position for the Atari VCS a few months ago, Atari has now packaged this game for their range of home computers. The new cartridge will run on a 400/800 machines and also on the new 600XL.

When you turn on the computer you are greeted with the familiar Pole Position scene. The clouds are still overhead and the horizon looms in the distance. The road has changed colour, though, from grey to black.

There is a choice of four circuits including a practice race for which you don't need to qualify. You can also set the race distance to anything between one and eight laps.

When you press Start, the Atari balloon pulls the "Prepare to Qualify" message across the sky. There is no speech in this version, however.

One of the most spectacular pieces of graphics programming from arcade Pole Position are the advertising boards which whizz past. These start in the distance as small specks on the horizon and get larger as they approach. The lettering and pictures on them gradually become more readable.

Unfortunately, although the boards have been transferred to this cartridge, the writing has not. They are completely blank which makes me question their importance to the game.

There is no accelerator in Pole Position. The car has a high and low gear which you can chance between at will by either pushing or pulling the joystick. Direction control is with the left and right movement of the stick, and the fire button acts as a brake.

Although this system is quite usable it cannot compare to the large steering wheel which controls the original.

At the top of the screen a timer ticks slowly down to zero. If you can finish a lap before it does so, you have qualified for the race proper. You are then lined up for the start along with five along cars.

There are not really that many other cars on the circuit to avoid, compared to Activision's new Enduro game for the VCS where the object is to pass 300 cars in a certain time.

However, this is an excellent implementation of the original and I enjoyed playing it. The car graphics were a little unclear, but generally the game is very playable. Certainly worth the standard Atari £29.95 price tag.