Product description
-------------------
Timber the Tiger's parents picked a fine time to go on vacation.
When they come back, they're going to be faced with an island
ted by the spiteful space bully Wizpig - unless the local
animals can do something about it! So join Diddy Kong as he teams
up with Timber the Tiger, Pipsy the Mouse and Taj the Genie in an
epic racing adventure unlike anything you've ever experienced
before!
From the Manufacturer
---------------------
Timber the Tiger's parents picked a fine time to go on vacation.
When they come back they're going to be faced with an island
ted by the spiteful space bully Wizpig - unless the local
animals can do something about it! So join Diddy Kong as he teams
up with Timber the Tiger Pipsy the Mouse and Taj the Genie in an
epic racing adventure unlike anything you've ever experienced
before! This unique game blends adventure and racing like no
other game! Roam anywhere you want on the island by car plane or
hovercraft! An enormous a of single-player and multi-player
modes! Feel the action when you use the N64 Rumble Pak and save
your times on the N64 Controller Pak!
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Review
------
Diddy Kong Racing, Nintendo's big game for the holidays, appeared
out of nowhere. At E3 in June, no one even knew it existed.
Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Quest were to be Nintendo's killer
games for the fourth quarter. But when it became apparent that
neither was going to be ready this year, Nintendo pulled the old
switcheroo and opted for Diddy Kong Racing, which, in the grand
scheme of things, probably wasn't supposed to see the light of
day for months.
As strange as it sounds, Diddy Kong Racing is a cross between
Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64. It seems that Wizpig, a crazy
porker from outer space, has taken over an island and locked away
all the island's racetracks. It's your job to regain control of
the tracks, beat the boss in each of the four worlds, and
ultimately, take on Wizpig himself. The game is structured much
like Mario 64. You can wander around in a fairly large world,
with four doors, each leading to a lobby for that particular
world. For each world, you must place first on each of the
world's four tracks, then race that world's boss. The boss race
pits you against a giant animal (triceratops, a giant walrus, a
squid, and a dragon). Once you've beaten the boss, you must go
back through the world's four tracks. Now you have to finish
first and collect eight silver coins from the track. Do this, and
you get to race the boss again, only he'll be slightly more
difficult. Do all that, and you can enter the trophy race and
race all four tracks yet again in a grand-prix-style set of
races. Sound horribly tedious? It is. Artificially lengthening
games by making you do the same thing over and over again is my
vote for the worst trend in gaming. But wait, did I mention that
after beating Space World, one of the game's hidden areas, you
can unlock Adventure 2, and race all the tracks in reverse? It's
enough to make a guy scream.
The gameplay on the actual tracks is pretty much straight out of
Mario Kart. You can pick up power-ups, shoot the other racers,
and drive over zippers that give you a quick speed boost. But
driving isn't the only thing you'll be doing. Some tracks
(usually water-based tracks) put you in a hovercraft and others
require you to fly a plane. But regardless of your mode of
transportation, the game is still pretty much the same.
Graphically, Diddy Kong Racing is a pleasure to look at. The
tracks are very detailed, and the game moves fairly quickly.
There is a fair a of fog and pop-up, but that's par for the
course when it comes to the N64. The sound and music are also
good, even if the music gets a bit repetitive.
Diddy Kong Racing is a game that shouldn't have been released for
at least another six months. The foul taste left behind by Mario
Kart 64 is still too fresh in my mind to accept a game as similar
as this, even though this is a much better game than Kart 64 ever
was. Also, the game could have used a few more worlds and more
tracks, as the repetitiveness of DKR is what ultimately kills it.
--Jeff Gerstmann
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
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