Diddy Kong Racing

The Good
This game was announced to the pubilc and gaming press less than a month before its release. Rare managed to keep it hidden through its entire development cycle and release it as a great Christmas present to N64 fans. And to top it off they showed Nintendo how to do a real PAL conversion (Mario Kart 64 or Wave Race 64 anyone?).

This game took the adventure and kart genres and mixed them into one, creating a brilliant karting game - with huge worlds to explore, secret keys to find (hidden in each world), unlockable characters, a huge unlockable space themed world, stunning and brilliant Boss races in order to complete worlds, an ultra-hard time trial against a ghost on every track to beat, all tied together by a beautiful over-world that was great for exploring. Each world had 6 levels that needed to be beat to complete it. Another new feature that Rare added to the genre in DKR was the three different modes of transport required for various levels - some levels were raced in karts, some in planes and some in bumper-boats on the water, adding great variations to the theme.

The control system is really good - fitting the various vehicles well and having the subtle corning and boosting techniques which were required to be learnt in order to beat the harder courses.

This game had real lastability, and it took some time to beat a lot of the tracks, not to mention unlocking the space world and beating TT's ghost on every track to get the ultra-fast TT to drive as (a big red stop-watch!). And to top it all off, once you finished everything, you unlocked the harder mirror-mode and had to beat everything in the game again, except all the tracks were mirrored. This was a game that lasted me several months, and clearly upstaged Nintendo's Mario Kart 64 single player game by some way.

The levels were perfectly designed - loads of primary colours everywhere in a cartoon world filled with marvellous and varied worlds - a pre-historik, dinosaur world, an island oasis world filled with water effects that upstaged Wave Race 64, a snow world with great Christmas-y music playing and awesome snow effects, a futuristic space world and a pirate lagoon based world. All the tracks were filled with cool sights and scenery, devilish layouts and turns, and short cuts that took true skill to master, but were required to beat the game.

The graphic engine driving this game was a step above everything else on the N64 at this point - managing to push a smooth and constant 30-frames per second through every track in the game with no fogging and a huge view into the distance - and the great level design ensured that there was no popup either. Everything looks really crisp also. Definitely a triple-AAA effort in the graphics department.

There are so many great parts to this game, including 7 or 8 races that are just stunning, but for me the highlight other than the space world was the races against the Boss characters, which were truly inspired pieces of art. Racing the huge Octopus around the islands in the water-world was truly great as was the first WizPig race during pouring rain and lightening inspired set pieces. And not to mention racing the Triceratops up the mountain and not being squashed by him or trying to beat the huge Walrus down the ice mountain. All these races were great and stand-out moments in the game, as well as being nice and hard to get past too.

The sound was well done too, with different tunes for every level - the most memorable being the great Christmas tunes in the snow-world. The music changed to reflect what was happening in the race also. The sound effects were crisp and clear too, with great voice acting, although the characters are not as good as Nintendo's own, but the voice work was well done never-the-less.

The Bad
The multi-player mode is absolute rubbish. It has no excitement, and the courses that were so great in single-player mode seem a bit crap in multi-player. This is in part due to the fact that racing against someone who is good at the game and knows all the short-cuts makes it impossible to win (for an average player). Whereas, in Mario Kart, the computer "helps" out the worse players, in Diddy Kong it is every person for themselves.

Also, the characters are nothing compared to Nintendo's line-up of mascots. Their personalities and traits are amusing at first, but you don't care about them or find them that funny after a few races, not like Yoshi, Mario and company.

Other than that, this game has no real flaws.

The Bottom Line
A brilliant karting-adventure, that you should definitely play if you are looking for a great and challenging single-player experience. Tonnes of hidden secrets and unlockable extras all stitched together by a very-good engine. In essence, loads of fun with some great eye-candy.