pariah
02-07-2007, 07:26 AM
Diddy Kong Racing has been one of my favorite games since it came out on the 64 yon many years ago. So, naturally, when I heard it was coming out for the DS that bitch was reserved and bought the same day it came out and for the most part my nostalgia was met although with a bitter taste of DS gimmick.
Diddy Kong Racing is much the same from it’s 64 brother. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the game, here’s a quick run down. The baddie Wizpig has set a spell over “The Island”, locking doors to racing courses and just being an all around jerk. Great, fine. It’s up to Diddy Kong and his band of feathery, furry buds to gather golden balloons to unlock doors, beat course bosses and put that pig in his place.
The island is made up of the typical chunks of racing you expect from a cartoonie racer: tropical, snow, space, dinosaur, yee olde England. There are different chunks of the island to unlock with different vehicles (car, hovercraft, airplane) and bosses by placing 1st to collect balloons.
The characters are mostly here with a few of the oldies replaced with the female Kongs (Tiny and Dixie). All the characters have different stats with handling, speed and weight. Pick your poison with that, I guess. I prefer faster guys, but in the long run with whatever you’re comfortable with, go with it.
The HUGE thing about DKR that I love is that it rewards good playing. If you suck at racing games, you’re going to lose. Unlike MarioKart which punishes you for being in first with the worst items and all good items go to the guy in 8th place which makes your life in first a living hell. DKR gives equal opportunity to gain good items. Items are gained by hitting different colored balloons scattered around the course. Blue balloons will give you temporary speed boosts; red will arm you with rockets, green with annoying blockers; yellow will give you shields and rainbow balloons will magnet you to the closest player.
The multiplayer racing is pretty self explanatory. You race other players that either download or play off their own card. Wow. The multiplayer battle is much the same like the 64, although it may take you a few seconds to get the hang of it. Plus, the battle mode isn’t really fun with only two people. The battle games would be more fun with more people. Period. As an added features, (for the mooch culture) unless your friends want to play on the wireless and go through the tedous process of unlocking EVERYTHING, there’s no real reason for them to buy it. Everything that you unlock will become available to them on the DS download.
DKR offers customization of your vehicle color and make such as adjusting speed, acceleration, handling, ect. You earn these special features by picking up coins along the courses and boss fights. There’s also a mandatory icon design you have to make, which my little doodle of a walrus looks pretty terrible.
The game would have been GREAT if it would have been a port plan and simple. Unfortunately someone decided to take on some gimmicky DS features onto the game. There’s a few spots on the island that you can interact with the stylus such as drawing to open a wall or flinging frogs across the screen. Even with just keeping the unnecessary, but somewhat Easter eggish features, I would have been alright with the stylus feature.
For example, instead of pressing the ignition button at the beginning of the race for a boost, you have to either spin a wheel or fan with a stylus (or blow into the mic in the case of the hovercraft.) C’mon Nintendo. I thought we weeded out this silliness on earlier games.
After finishing off the courses you can unlock a “float around on a magic carpet and popping balloon and collecting coins” game. You move the stylus on the touch screen to look around for a balloons. It’s not incredibly hard, but don’t worry, the boss fights are much. Much worse.
One version of the boss fights is like a bastardized version of Kirby’s Rainbow Canvas. You draw on the touch screen to half-ass guide your little guy on an overview map and spin a wheel to keep moving toward the end trying to avoid the giant walrus/dinosaur/whatever is trying to run you over. It feels awkward and really annoying to try to beat. I am really disappointed by this and I’m really not looking forward to doing it at least four more times.
The only other complaint that I really have is that there is a lot of items, courses and I don’t even know what else to unlock with coins, wins and balloons. It’s a little daunting to say the least.
All and all, I’ll still probably keep the game around. My love for Diddy Kong Racing will keep this game in my collection for a while. It’s a decent racing game once you strip away the gimmicks of the stylus and unlock everything that there is. If you liked Diddy Kong Racing as much as I did when the 64 was still supreme, then you’ll probably forgive the flaws and have fun with it. If you didn’t, well, don’t buy the game.
Diddy Kong Racing is much the same from it’s 64 brother. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the game, here’s a quick run down. The baddie Wizpig has set a spell over “The Island”, locking doors to racing courses and just being an all around jerk. Great, fine. It’s up to Diddy Kong and his band of feathery, furry buds to gather golden balloons to unlock doors, beat course bosses and put that pig in his place.
The island is made up of the typical chunks of racing you expect from a cartoonie racer: tropical, snow, space, dinosaur, yee olde England. There are different chunks of the island to unlock with different vehicles (car, hovercraft, airplane) and bosses by placing 1st to collect balloons.
The characters are mostly here with a few of the oldies replaced with the female Kongs (Tiny and Dixie). All the characters have different stats with handling, speed and weight. Pick your poison with that, I guess. I prefer faster guys, but in the long run with whatever you’re comfortable with, go with it.
The HUGE thing about DKR that I love is that it rewards good playing. If you suck at racing games, you’re going to lose. Unlike MarioKart which punishes you for being in first with the worst items and all good items go to the guy in 8th place which makes your life in first a living hell. DKR gives equal opportunity to gain good items. Items are gained by hitting different colored balloons scattered around the course. Blue balloons will give you temporary speed boosts; red will arm you with rockets, green with annoying blockers; yellow will give you shields and rainbow balloons will magnet you to the closest player.
The multiplayer racing is pretty self explanatory. You race other players that either download or play off their own card. Wow. The multiplayer battle is much the same like the 64, although it may take you a few seconds to get the hang of it. Plus, the battle mode isn’t really fun with only two people. The battle games would be more fun with more people. Period. As an added features, (for the mooch culture) unless your friends want to play on the wireless and go through the tedous process of unlocking EVERYTHING, there’s no real reason for them to buy it. Everything that you unlock will become available to them on the DS download.
DKR offers customization of your vehicle color and make such as adjusting speed, acceleration, handling, ect. You earn these special features by picking up coins along the courses and boss fights. There’s also a mandatory icon design you have to make, which my little doodle of a walrus looks pretty terrible.
The game would have been GREAT if it would have been a port plan and simple. Unfortunately someone decided to take on some gimmicky DS features onto the game. There’s a few spots on the island that you can interact with the stylus such as drawing to open a wall or flinging frogs across the screen. Even with just keeping the unnecessary, but somewhat Easter eggish features, I would have been alright with the stylus feature.
For example, instead of pressing the ignition button at the beginning of the race for a boost, you have to either spin a wheel or fan with a stylus (or blow into the mic in the case of the hovercraft.) C’mon Nintendo. I thought we weeded out this silliness on earlier games.
After finishing off the courses you can unlock a “float around on a magic carpet and popping balloon and collecting coins” game. You move the stylus on the touch screen to look around for a balloons. It’s not incredibly hard, but don’t worry, the boss fights are much. Much worse.
One version of the boss fights is like a bastardized version of Kirby’s Rainbow Canvas. You draw on the touch screen to half-ass guide your little guy on an overview map and spin a wheel to keep moving toward the end trying to avoid the giant walrus/dinosaur/whatever is trying to run you over. It feels awkward and really annoying to try to beat. I am really disappointed by this and I’m really not looking forward to doing it at least four more times.
The only other complaint that I really have is that there is a lot of items, courses and I don’t even know what else to unlock with coins, wins and balloons. It’s a little daunting to say the least.
All and all, I’ll still probably keep the game around. My love for Diddy Kong Racing will keep this game in my collection for a while. It’s a decent racing game once you strip away the gimmicks of the stylus and unlock everything that there is. If you liked Diddy Kong Racing as much as I did when the 64 was still supreme, then you’ll probably forgive the flaws and have fun with it. If you didn’t, well, don’t buy the game.