This kart-style racing game was rated “best racing game of the year” in 1998 for the N64. It features Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong’s nephew) and seven other animal friends, TipTup (turtle), Pipsy (mouse), Timber
(tiger), Banjo (bear), Conker (squirrel), Crunch (alligator), and Bumper (skunk or raccoon or something
similar). Anyway, these eight racers are trying to win races to destroy some moron pig who took over their
island. You choose a racer, then win races for Golden Balloons, which open up more tracks. You can also play multi-player races. There are other colored-balloons instead of ? Blocks, for you to get your items. Plus,
you can choose from a car, hovercraft, or plane, and some courses have limited choices of vehicle. Otherwise, it’s very similar to Mario Kart, and it was one of the first kart-racing games after Mario Kart,
starting the kart-racing game trend that almost every franchise has followed, like Crash Bandicoot, Star Wars, and even Lego. Also, all over the Internet, it was said, "Mario Kart 64 is good, but Diddy Kong
Racing is better."
This Review is, yet again, rated on the 0 - 4 star scale. I also offer a comparison to Mario Kart 64 in each category, with a + being better than MK64, a - being worse, and a = being the same.
Graphics: **1/2
This was good ol’ early Nintendo 64 graphics in a nutshell. Polygons, sprites, cardboard- you name it, it’s there. But it does take out a lot of that cardboard-ness that Mario Kart 64 had, like those horrible vehicles in Toad’s Turnpike. The dinosaur seen in Ancient Lake is not too bad. Plus, the wooden Wizpig seen in the starting point of Adventure Mode looks pretty nice. Overall, the graphics are above-average. (+)
Sound: ****
This game is made by Rare. What does that mean? Great music, that’s what. Donkey Kong 64 and other DK games also have high-quality music too. This one lives up to those expectations. If you use the code JUKEBOX in the Magic Codes, you get a Music Menu, which gives all the tunes to this game. Some of the best include Ancient Lake, Jungle Falls, Greenwood Village, Treasure Caves, Crescent Island, and #39 of the music list (I don’t know where it’s from, but it’s probably the best). Seriously, this music is really good. The sound tracks by the characters are pretty good as well. I don’t know why the music quality in games made by Rare is so high, but it is, and this has to be the strongest point of this game. You know what that means. Uh oh... (=)
Difficulty: ****
Four stars in difficulty isn’t always
a good thing. In fact, in this game, it’s a very bad thing. Races against
the computer are nearly impossible to win at times. Consider the fact that
the hovercraft is so hard to control, the rockets (your only forward attack)
only shoot forward (except for the homing missile, which you must save
up for, and I’ll explain later), and the A.I. is made to make no mistakes
and speed around the track, leaving you with no room for error. How bad
is it? After I unlocked half the tracks the first night (all the easy ones),
I’ve had a ton of trouble unlocking any more. But then, after you do beat
all the tracks in an area, you have more problems. You then have to beat
the boss. Very hard, but he’s beatable (well, sometimes). You then have
to beat all the tracks AND collect eight silver coins along the way. These
aren’t always easy to find or get, especially since you have to still win,
and going out of the way to get one doesn’t help. THEN you have to beat
the boss AGAIN, and he’s harder. THEN you finally get to a Mario Kart-style
trophy competition,
in which you race all four tracks in
that area for points. After you win a trophy, now what? Do it for all four
areas. Since there are still some I haven’t been able to beat the first
time (seriously), I’m really stuck. Not only that, but not even a GameShark
will open up the final four hidden tracks. Oh yeah, you have to beat four
challenges, including a plane picking up eggs and returning them to your
home, which is really hard. Also, you have to beat the genie in three challenges,
one in which I’m really frustrated over. ALSO, you have to beat Wizpig
at the end, and it’s been said that he is impossible to beat unless you
hit every single speed boost along the way. So, in other words, he’s impossible
to beat for a non-perfect person like me. How bad is it really? I’ve only
won one trophy, and I’ve had the game since October 1999. I only won that
in March of 2001. We’ll just leave it at that. (-)
Characters: *
Uh, who the heck are some of these guys? I know Diddy, Banjo, and Conker, but the other five are mysterious. Needless to say, they haven’t appeared in any other games (although Crunch could be considered a generic Kremling in DK64). (-)
Controls: ****
Excellent controls. Why the perfect
score? There’s nothing wrong with them. A is accelerate, B is brake,
R is power-slide, Z is honk horn or
use item, and the C buttons aren’t used for much other than changing
views and stuff. (=)
Story: ***
Now here’s something you don’t have
in every racing game: a storyline. Supposedly Timber the Tiger’s
parents went on vacation, and while
they were gone, some moron pig named Wizpig took over their island. At
the island, Diddy and his pals have to race to earn Golden Balloons, which
will eventually open up a path
to Wizpig. Problem with the storyline?
Yes. Why the heck are these racers racing against each other when
they’re all after the same goal? I
mean, just let one of them win if that’s how to get balloons. You can choose
any character you want and switch characters, so it’s not like the other
seven are real enemies. But aside from that, it’s nice for a racing game
to have a story for once. (+)
Tracks: ***1/2
The tracks in this game are much shorter
than Mario Kart’s, as they shouldn’t take any longer than two
minutes for most of them. That doesn’t
mean that there’s nothing in them. In fact, you’ll face a walking dinosaur,
dinosaur bones, Podoboo-like flames, flying birds, huge rolling snowballs,
and windmills. Who can forget the pirate ship or drawbridge? Believe me,
this game has some unforgettable tracks, and if only I could have some
mercy from the computers, I could see the four outerspace tracks. Plus,
all tracks contain speed boosts, which many call “zippers”. These are little
red arrows that you run over that give you a Mushroom-like boost. To be
quite honest, they are very good, but they just miss the perfect mark because
of their shortness and lack of character-obstacles (like Chomps and Monty
Moles). (-)
Gameplay: Instead of one overall score, mashing all categories into one, I’ll review each mini-category separately.
Vehicles: *1/2
There are three vehicles, not just one,
so that must mean triple the fun. Right? Wrong. First of all, the
hovercraft is just plain horrible at
turns. It’s so bad, you can actually get yourself turned around, and out
of the race, basically, if you turn just a bit too hard. Secondly, the
plane is very hard to steer. Up is down and down is up. And third, if the
car lands in water, there’s no Lakitu to pick you up. You have to drive,
extremely slowly, believe me, until you can get out of the water. Usually
this takes you way out of the race. Of course, the fact that you have to
get some silver coins right near water makes you either go into the water
and lose the race automatically or have to slow down completely and lose
some positioning. (-)
Items: *1/2
Well, there aren’t that many items, but they’re there. The rocket is like a Green Shell, the shield is all right, the rocket boost is like a Mushroom, but a little weaker, and the magnet is supposed to pull back an opponent ahead of you, but at least 90 percent of the time doesn’t. The good: if you hit another balloon of the same color, you power-up your item, which makes the rocket like a Red Shell, the shield becomes longer and spins people out, the rocket boosts like a better Mushroom, and the magnet gets a little stronger, but still pretty useless. Then you can power it up again, which makes the rocket become ten rockets (but only of Green Shell accuracy), the shield becomes longer and spins people out, the rocket boost like two Mushrooms combined, and the magnet gets really strong, but usually still useless. The bad: if you get a different item, you start all over again, having to re-collect the balloons to get to a higher power again. The ugly: most of the items stink. Sure, the rocket boost is nice, and even nicer is the homing missile. But the magnet hardly ever works, even on its highest power. A non-homing rocket hardly ever hits an opponent. The powered-up shield hardly ever spins an opponent out. And the weak rocket boost isn’t really that great. So if most items are useless in helping you come back, how can you come back? The homing missile is really all that helps me. (-)
Banana System: ***1/2
Like the coins in Super Mario Kart and
Mario Kart: Super Circuit, bananas boost your maximum speed. After
ten bananas, your speed doesn’t go
any higher. Also, if you get hit by a rocket or something else, you lose
two bananas. This is a great system,
with its only fault being some hard-to-get bananas. (+)
Multiplayer Racing: ***
Obviously all kart-racing games are
made for the multiplayer races, and this one is pretty good in this
category. Like Mario Kart 64, it turns
off the music for three and four player races. It also splits the screen.
Now that’s obvious, but it also makes some tracks lose interactive parts
of them, like the dinosaur in Ancient Lake. It takes away some of the fun.
Plus, you can’t use any vehicle you want, just the vehicle the game chooses,
if you haven’t beaten the track in Adventure Mode. Not only that, you must
first unlock a track/challenge/trophy race if you want to do it in multiplayer.
I like all or at least most tracks unlocked in a racing game, especially
one as hard as this. Otherwise, it’s good fun. You’ll have a blast in the
challenge arenas, which are opened by finding keys in tracks. If you find
them, you’ll unlock a challenge arena, which gives you a egg-collecting
game, two Mario Kart-like battles, and a banana-collecting race. (-)
Time Trials: 1/2
Boring. That’s right, just plain boring. Not only boring, but you also sometimes have to race that clock. If you beat him on every track, you’ll unlock him. Sounds easy, right? Of course not. First of all, you only get to race the clock if your time is fast enough. Second, he’s nearly impossible to beat. Seriously. I’ve only got to race him on two tracks, and I get killed every time, with the races being not even close. Plus, these races bring out all the frustration. (-)
Replayability: ***1/2
Well, this game isn’t short. In fact, it’s way too long. But it will have you turning the game back on to play some more. The loss of half a star is the frustration that makes me want to quit because I try so hard and so much and still lose. (-)
Fun Factor!: ***
This game is a lot of fun. I should
also say, a lot of fun besides the one-player vs. computer and one-player
time trials. Those two modes aren’t
that fun. Other than that, it’s a blast, especially against live opponents.
(-)
OVERALL: *1/2
The subpar rating may surprise you,
but the extreme difficulty, lack of interesting characters, and poor
item system pretty much ruin this game,
especially in the one-player modes. It does offer some great
multiplayer fun, but if you want a
kart-racing game for the N64, look no further than Mario Kart 64. Of
course the best racing game is F-Zero
X, so Diddy Kong Racing really doesn’t make it that high on the racing
game list. I was extremely disappointed
in this game, especially because of the very hard difficulty. So skip this
unless you’re desperate, because it really isn’t that great.
| If you would like to send some feedback
to the author of this submission, please complete this form.
What's your name?
What's your Email address?
How do you rate this submission?
Does this submission belong in Little
Lemmy's Land?
Would you like to see more from this author? Comments and suggestions:
|
