When Diddy Kong Racing first came out for the Nintendo 64, almost ten years ago, I was a huge fan of it. Not only did it feature one of my favorite video game characters, Diddy Kong, but also because it was extremely fun to play on your own, and with others.
Unfortunately, Diddy Kong Racing DS kind of makes me wonder if it was such a great game after all. After playing this version, I’m not so sure if the first game was such a classic as I thought it was to be.
To begin with, the story is insanely… stupid. The DS version actually explains the story with a cut scene. A massive pig by the name of Wizpig suddenly appears on Timber the Tiger’s island. One of Diddy’s friends writes him a letter, telling him that the giant pig has invaded the island. Diddy responds and rounds up every cute little character on the island, and then meets up with all of them…to race each other? Hopefully, racing each other will allow you to race Wizpig, who will go home after you come in first place against him.
Unlike the Mario Kart series, Diddy Kong Racing has you traveling around an island in a vehicle looking for specific places to race in instead of just picking from a list of tracks. You can visit four themed worlds, each with a variety of tracks, and a boss that you must defeat to bring you one step closer to racing Wizpig. The game also has tons of objects and items in each world that you can collect.
Racing isn’t that difficult to pick up on at all. The player must race against seven other karts, or hovercrafts/planes, depending on what the level is, and use various short cuts or weapons to earn the title of first place and a golden balloon that will be used to access other areas. Racing in this game seems a bit more difficult than the original Diddy Kong Racing, but it isn’t exactly impossible.
Unlike Mario Kart DS, this game doesn’t have much variety of weapons. Blue balloons carry boost, red balloons carry missiles, green balloons carry obstacles such as oil spills, rainbow balloons carry magnet type weapons in which the player attracts closer to the racer in front of him, and yellow balloons that carry force fields.
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