Diddy Kong Racing

"Better than Mario Kart."

There is an excellent reason why only human beings are permitted to have licenses to drive vehicles. Just one glance at Diddy Kong Racing, and you will see everything that is wrong with enabling wild animals to tote around fancy cars and planes. For you see, vehicles are a gateway to such other potentially deadly weapons as missiles, landmines, and giant bubbles. In this jungle of mayhem, there are no traffic signals, no police force, and no actual established rules of the road. Critters are permitted to drive as recklessly as they wish. Street racing runs rampant, with every single landmark being fair game for speeding. Using weapons they find conveniently placed on the tracks, the creatures blow each other off the courses at will, without the least bit of shame. On second thought, is this truly any different than humans driving? Not really. After the success of Mario Kart 64, many developers jumped on the bandwagon to mimic Nintendo's wacky style, only to pale at every turn in comparison. With Rare's effort to use its own franchises in a kart racer, however, they may have actually succeeded in not only matching the quality of its inspiration, but possibly surpassing it.

As can be expected from a title originating from Rare's bottomless pit of random insanity, Diddy Kong Racing features a bizarre story to boot. Timber's Island, tropical residence and racing resort of Timber the Tiger, is paid a surprising visit by Wizpig, the lean intergalactic slice of bacon who rides around on a giant rocket calling everybody scrawny worms. (Like I said, random.) In his uninvited island conquest, he locks up the four region guardians and their magic medallion, issuing a challenge to the racers of the Donkey Kong Universe. If they can collect all the silver and gold balloons and defeat the guardians of the island, they can challenge him to a final showdown on his greasy home planet. Frightened with cowardice, Timber frantically recruits fellow racers, including Diddy Kong, Banjo, Conker, and a few other unimportant side characters. And so they whisk off on a less-than-magical journey to race recklessly and create pork kabobs out of the foul and scourged Wizpig.

At the beginning of the game, you will be given the option of choosing from one of eight characters. These characters are split up into classes depending on their weight. The weight system is relatively similar to the one used in the Mario Kart series, with lighter racers handling and accelerating with much greater ease than their heavier contenders, which have excellent top speed but clunky maneuvering abilities. Unlike most kart-racers which limit you to a car, Diddy Kong Racing gives you the option of choosing from one of three vehicles – the standard car, the hovercraft, or the plane. All handle differently, with different vehicles having their own advantages and disadvantages depending on both the track and the racer who pilots them. Whereas heavyweight racers in previous racing titles have gotten the short end of the stick, their girth makes them the prime selection for racing on water, where lighter characters will be tossed around by miniature waves. Piloting the plane on courses with a land track could help you bypass certain hazards on the ground or find shortcuts through the side walls.

Diddy Kong Racing features Timber's Island as a main hub, with gateways leading to the game's five worlds, each containing their own courses following a set theme. The themes range from prehistoric to medieval to futuristic. Players are free to cruise around the island in their vehicle of choice, discovering secrets that lie outside of the racetrack using their character of choice. That said, the plane is the ideal vehicle of exploration. Each course and world requires a certain amount of Gold Balloons to enter, all leading up to the boss race. You will receive special Gold Balloons for achieving first place in each track. In addition, a secret battle arena lies in each world. Keys with the Rareware logo plastered on them are hidden inside certain courses, generally off the beaten trail, and collecting them will open up multiplayer arenas where players can participate and compete in such tasks as collecting the most bananas or simply shooting random crap at each other in a game of elimination, somewhat similar to a Mario Kart battle mode. For simple joyrides, the game also features a Time Trial mode to defeat your own fastest records.

Items are a trademark of the kart-racing genre. Different colored balloons are positioned at set intervals in each course. The item you will receive depends on the color of the balloon you pass through. For instance, a red balloon will yield a missile. These can be fired in a straight line, exploding on whoever they hit. Blue balloons will grant you a rocket boost for a chance to bypass your opponents and shave a good second off your clock, while green balloons yield oil slicks which you can drop behind you, causing anybody that runs over them to spin out and lose time. Other items you can receive from the other varieties of balloons include defensive shields to protect yourself against enemy fire or magnets which will lock on to an opponent and draw you closer towards them. However, the unique thing about Diddy Kong Racing's item system is the method of receiving item upgrades. If you hold onto a particular item without using it and pass through a second or third balloon of the same color, you will receive an improved version of the original. For example, two consecutive red balloons will grant you a homing missile as opposed to one that fires in a straight line. Additional boosts and shields will result in turbo boosts and shields that last triple the normal length. The magnet is perhaps the most devious upgrade, which instead of pulling your racer towards an opponent will drag one of your opponents back towards you!

After completing a world through the standard races, you will be presented with the Silver Coin Challenge. You must race through the world's courses once more – with a twist. Eight Silver Coins are now placed somewhere on each track. The majority of these lie in plain view, but others are trickier to locate. Quite a few appear off the beaten track, positioned to the sides, in a bed of sand that will slow down your vehicle, or in a shortcut. You must collect all eight of these coins and still achieve first place in order to win a secondary balloon. If missed on the first lap, these coins can be picked up on the second or third laps. Since a lot of these coins require you to maneuver out of the way to achieve them, retaining a first place position is much, much harder. If I had to fault this game anywhere, it would be here. Simply put, the Silver Coin Challenges are downright frustrating and often times tedious. Missing one can mess up the entire race for you, and in the worst offenders like the Greenwood Village course, you actually have to backtrack to collect them all by taking the slowest routes possible.

After completing all four courses in a particular world, a boss race will open up. A poorly voiced area guardian will then greet you, calling you pathetic and threatening to smear your character's face along the track. The race will either require you to beat the boss to a certain checkpoint or complete three laps. Not only are these guardians much larger and faster than you, but they also cheat. While you have to wait a full three seconds for the signal to begin the race, they will take a head start about two seconds ahead. If that were not enough, they will often block your path and create obstacles that they are immune to, but will harm you. For instance, Blubber the Octopus will drop mines in the water, which will detonate if you come in contact with them. On top of that, if you come in contact with the bosses themselves, you will be squished and stalled for several seconds. Like in the courses, however, you can pinpoint shortcuts that can help you gain a lead. You can also use missiles to slow down your opponent. After completing the Silver Coin challenge in each world, the area guardian will challenge you to a rematch. During these second bouts, they are even sneakier, dropping bubbles instead of mines or causing debris to rain onto the track.

Veterans of Donkey Kong Country and Battletoads should recognize the style of music featured in this game. David Wise brings out another stellar performance with catchy, upbeat, and epic tracks to suit the atmosphere to perfection. Voice acting, unfortunately, does not fall into the same category. While the grunts and squeals made during the races after getting rammed off the side of the track or successfully gunning down an opponent are quite tolerable, the speech samples given during the character select screen and the few cut-scenes the game has to offer are much more laughable. While the limited diction in Wizpig's poor vocabulary is simply an example of Rare's zany humor, the acting itself is humorous for all the wrong reasons. Really, I think there's a very good reason why Banjo's speech was decreased to mindless noises with subtitles when he got his own game. It's pretty putrid here. Graphically, the game is vibrant with nothing truly to complain about. The boss models stand out from the rest of the cast, featuring some more stunning detail.

On the whole, I daresay Diddy Kong Racing is better than any Mario Kart game has ever aspired to be. It contains true challenge with a much wider variety of options to alter the gameplay to your desires. The game appears lighthearted, yet truly provides a test of one's racing nerve. The characters and villains are a perfect example of Rare's wacky creativity, with a charming cast to boot. The addition of the main hub expands the game so that it is not simply confined to the racetrack like in so many other titles of the genre. Playing against others is equally rewarding, with multiple modes of play and incentives to simply goof off. Not to mention a mystifying soundtrack and a sense of adventure not present in other racers that set the atmosphere perfectly. In all honesty, you owe it to yourself to give Diddy Kong Racing a whirl. That is, if you're willing to put behind everything Mario Kart has taught you and accept something even better…

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/04/06