25 Days of Christmas - #25: Diddy Kong Racing

For the Christmas season, I felt I would offer my own 25 days of Christmas. Each day from now until December 25, I will post my 25 favorite games of all time. These are not necessarily the most successful games in either sales or critical reception; they are simply my favorite games from over the years. Without further ado, the first game on my list:

Largely overshadowed by Mario Kart 64, Rare’s cartoon racer surpassed Nintendo’s in many regards. The number of racetracks available was greater and the weapons less centered around a single character’s franchise. With characters drawn from other Rare games including Conker (before his Mature-rated days) and Banjo (sans Kazooie), Diddy Kong Racing was host to a particularly colorful cast. As was the case with most racing games of the day, each character had his or her own unique attributes that changed the way they handled on the race track. Heavier characters like Krunch could handle sharp turns better, while those more lightweight like Tiptup had much better acceleration.

Diddy Kong Racing allowed players to drive the traditional go-kart, but also provided the option of a prop plane and a hover boat. Each vehicle, though they altered the gameplay significantly, flowed smoothly and felt balanced. The item balloons even altered slightly to fit the vehicles appropriately, such as the oil spill becoming a gas cloud when using the plane.

The sheer number of tracks available in the game was certainly impressive. Each world was home to four main racetracks and one boss race. Initially, there were four major worlds to be found, and requiring a set number of golden balloons to access. But after defeating the main boss Wizpig, the game offered a fifth world to those who had earned gold rankings on all of the trophy races. Another four levels and one final showdown with Wizpig made the finale of the game triumphant.



Diddy Kong Racing offered multiple modes of gameplay to up the replay value. Not to say that the main game was short, but the added modes certainly didn’t hurt the finished product. Within the main single-player story there was both the traditional race which challenged the racer to aim for one of the top three spots as well as another mode that added on a search for silver coins while still aiming for the top three. A time attack mode was offered in both the main story and free play modes, and players could store their times on an N64 memory card to later challenge their times in a ‘ghost race’. Trophy races put racers in the four races of each world and kept an overall placement that would go up or down as the each course was completed. There was even a multiplayer battle mode that was different for each world, varying from a hoard-the-eggs minigame and a more traditional battle mode.

Considering this was the first video game I ever owned, I can’t even begin to imagine the hours I must have poured into this game. I still maintain to this day that beating Wizpig the first time was the single most challenging moment for me in gaming.