Diddy Kong Racing

Following the success of Mario Kart 64 from Nintendo, Rare decided to follow suit with their own racing game. While the game was better than Mario Kart in some areas, it fell short in others.

Diddy Kong and his friends gather on Timber Island, which has been taken over by the evil alien Wizpig. Now they must engage the fiend a racing competition with assistance from the Elephant genie, Taj and TT the stopwatch.

There's eight different racers to choose from at the start with their own varying top speed, handling, and acceleration. They include Diddy, of course, and the soon to be famous Banjo Bear and, to a lesser extent, Conker T. Squirrel. There's also two unlockable characters, TT and Drumstick, but unlocking them is very difficult. Plus, you get to drive not only a car, but a hovercraft, and airplane as well.

DKR had better single player mode than Mario Kart thanks to a deeper story centered around beating a villain instead of just competition. The island hub world is split into four different worlds: Dino Domain, Sherbert Island, Snowflake Mountain, and Dragon Forest. Each world has a guardian that serves as a boss your required to beat before proceeding to the next one. As opposed to base races against the other CPUs, the boss races and silver coin challenges were tough, and the first race against Wizpig is a nightmare unless you know a certain trick. But personally, I enjoyed the challenge.

Thanks to legendary game composer David Wise, the music was top-notch, from the arid Indian-esque Hot Top Volcanos, futuristic and triumphant sounding Spaceport Alphas, and Wizpig's diabolical and intense final boss theme.

Like Mario Kart 64, there's powerups to use against opponents during races but they are limited to speed boosts, shields, and missiles. The controls and handling felt smoother, but the racetracks felt simpler and more linear than most of Mario Karts tracks and there were fewer hazards. While this made the game easier, it also took some of the thrill out for me.

At the end of the day, this was a great racing game, but a bit too cheery for my taste, and I feel it was just a brighter and softer version of Mario Kart, which I enjoyed more as far as multiplayer went.

Despite already having Mario Kart on the N64, Nintendo obviously felt that there was sufficient demand for colourful racing games to warrant spinning off the Donkey Kong franchise as well. The result was a racing game that is similar to Mario Kart in style and in different ways is both superior and inferior to that game. Not being a big fan of the N64 Mario Kart (but in love with the SNES version) I ended up giving DKR a try to see how it compared.

Immediately I was hit by how childish and average the graphics were – not just by today's standards but also back then. Considering the power of the N64, they were surprisingly sketchy. It didn't help that they tried to have a lot of stuff moving around or that the colours and characters were aimed so squarely at an age-bracket than just wanted to drive round as a monkey or a tiger, but generally I wasn't impressed. It scrolled well enough but it just didn't impress or interest me. The characters were equally annoying and I would have happily gutted all those cutesy and cheerful animals in return for the lean, green Koopa.

The races themselves are annoyingly cute and look too colourful and slow for my tastes. However in some ways they are better than Mario Kart. They are more skillful for example and you can actually pull away from people if you are driving really well. The items are mostly a lot harder to use as well and the computer characters use them less as well, again meaning that a skillful driver will not just get pelted because the computer wants to keep the race tight. The choice of vehicles is a nice touch as well, with the ability to fly around the same tracks that you drive round being fun (not sure about the slow and annoying hovercrafts though – might have been a nice idea on paper). The races feel a bit slow as well, again like it is aimed at children – although conversely some parts of it are annoyingly difficult to get passed and, although more skillful than MK64, it isn't skill-based to the point where you can grow past them, it is really just a case of plugging away and hoping. The little games between the races are quite fun though and long after I'd given up on it as a racing game I was still coming back to steal vulture eggs from 3 other players! Overall this is an OK racing game and younger players who liked Mario Kart will probably like it as well. However for me it was a bit too colourful and childish – not only in looks and characters but also in terms of the races and the game as a whole. It may have strengths over MK64 (not a great game itself) but generally it only comes out as a so-so game and certainly not one that too many adults will have given more than a passing glance to.

Rated E

Diddy Kong Racing is a racing game for the Nintendo 64.Another spin off from the Donkey Kong series.This game is great.An extremely fun and good racing game for the Nintendo 64.This game has plenty of great characters to choose from with their own unique vehicles and plenty of area's to choose from.The characters in this game range from Mario,Luigi,Donkey Kong,Diddy Kong and Conker who would later be featured in the M-rated Conker's Bad Fur Day.Diddy Kong Racing is a very fun racing game.If you find this game at a garage sale or on EBAY and you have an N64 then this game is worth it.Very fun!

9/10

The Donkey Kong series is one of the most different adventure video games! The characters, the action, and the sure thrill of adventure makes this game a fun non-stop playing time! Below is a brief look how I think the game is!

Game Play: The game play is very good. There is really basic controls here and is easy to perform. Novice gamers should have a good time here!

Graphics: The graphics are wonderful especially for the N64! The backgrounds are really beautiful! Difficulty: The game is easy but as it goes on you find out that it will become more difficult!

Music: The music is great! Just fantastic catchy tunes through out the game! In My opinion its some of the best music ever in a video game!

Sound: The sound is great. Nuff said!

Overall: I have always loved Diddy Kong Racing! If you like excellent adventure up games then I strongly recommend you play this game!

To purchase this video game check out Amazon.com!

11/10 stars. Superior to Mario Kart in every way except battle mode. But holds up better today than Mario Kart. Controls are tight and distinct. Music is the best soundtrack to a game hands down.