Diddy Kong Racing

As some of you may not know, I work for a different gaming page called Gamer Logic when I’m not working on my reviews for System Shuffle. I post content throughout the week, talk to gamers like you guys about different ways that gaming affects their life, and share different nerd culture things I find online. One of my topics on Gamer Logic was about remixed video game music, and one of the tracks that I came across was a remix for a song from Diddy Kong Racing. When I was listening to it, I discovered that Mark (who was in the room with me) had never played Diddy Kong Racing. I couldn’t allow that!

I never owned Diddy Kong Racing prior to starting my collection. I actually played it once as a kid when i went to my Dads Bosses Christmas party. I was in grade school, so it was up to the older boys at the party to babysit me. They mentioned that they were upstairs playing Nintendo 64, and even though my dad mentioned that I had a N64 for myself, they still weren’t too thrilled to have me tagging along. Once we started playing, I was pretty good! I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t awful either, and the boys actually had fun teaching me how to play and different tricks to play better. I didn’t play it again until high school, where I got my N64 back.

Diddy Kong Racing is a racing game for Nintendo 64 that was released in 1997 and developed by Rareware. 800,000 copies were pre-ordered 2 weeks before Christmas the year it was released, making it into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the fastest selling game at the time. The game was released in what I’d like to call the “age of racing games” where games like Mario Kart 64, Crash Team Racing, and Lego Racers were released, making racing titles more commonly seen on store shelves and home TV screens. A remake of the game was released for Nintendo DS in 2007, and a new Diddy kong Racing game is rumored for release on the Wii U later this year.

When you start up the game, you’re automatically brought to the character select menu. To play with other people, make sure to just plug in the extra controllers and press A on the newly added controllers to enter them into the game. Rareware did something clever with their characters for this game. You may see that there are characters here that look oddly familiar to other characters from other Rareware games that weren’t released yet at the time, such as Conker the Squirrel (lower left corner), Banjo the Bear (upper right corner), or a Croc from Donkey Kong (upper left corner). These characters were put in so when these characters games were eventually released, the players would recognize them from Diddy Kong Racing. (Too bad Conker ended up being a drunk and a jerk in his rated mature N64 game, I mean who on earth let him drive?)

If you’re playing 1 player, after you choose your character you’ll be sent to a screen that allows you to choose from two different options: Adventure or Tracks. In Adventure, you’re put into a small overworld with doors spread throughout the area. In each door, there are more doors that require a certain amount of balloons to enter. When you enter a door, you’re put into a race that you must win 1st place in order to win an additional balloon. (The game gives you a free door to go into right away, so you have a way to earn a balloon right away.) After all the doors in an area are completed, you will go into a large door that enters you into a trophy race. Note: There’s a rock in the overworld that is blank but is in the shape of a giant head. This head belongs to the bad guy of Diddy Kong Racing, Wizpig. Wizpig has gone world to world, challenging people to races that would cost them their lives if they lost. Once you complete the trophy race in an area, a section of the face will be revealed. It’s your job to complete all the areas and trophy races to complete the faces image.

The tracks option is a lot more simple. You’re given a few different races tracks to start with, unlocking more tracks as you win races. In these races, you have different vehicles to choose from: Hovercraft (faster on water), car (typical road travel), and a plane (fair speed in air, but harder to get power-ups that lay on the ground). After trying all ways of travel in certain races, I’ve noticed that all of the vehicles are balanced, and it all comes down to how you want to play. There will be races that you may not have all three vehicles to choose from, and some even make you use just one vehicle. Now I know that I mentioned power-ups, but all of these power ups are just like your typical power-ups from any other racing game. There are colored balloons throughout the races track, each having a different item when you hit it. Hit the same colored balloon twice and you gain a more powerful version of that power-up. Hit a different colored balloon, and you’ll lose your previous item and gain the new one. CAREFUL, if you’re upgrading items and suddenly you hit a different colored balloon, you will completely lose your upgraded item. The items available to you are speed boosts, rockets, shields, and oil spills to make your opponents wipe out. 

Overall, this is a fantastic game to play in your spare time. The reason this game was as popular as it was when it was released is because of its versatility. The ability to choose from 3 different vehicles in a race made the game more fun, and gave the player different ways to play different race tracks. It’s also one of the only racing games of its time that had an overworld and a sense of adventure rather than just repeatedly entering and winning races. I remember just flying around the overworld and being entertained for an hour or two. The controls in the game are simple, allowing the player to be in full control with only 3 buttons: acceleration, brakes, and a button to use your item. The game is extremely player friendly, and no character has any sort of advantage over the others, making the game balanced. I highly recommend this game to anyone who hasn’t tried it, no matter your age. I’m hoping that the Wii U remake gives the game justice, but that’ll be a review for the future!

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