Diddy Kong Racing

Diddy Kong Racing

Diddy Kong Racing is a 1997 racing game for the Nintendo 64 developed by Rareware. 800,000 copies were ordered in the two weeks before Christmas 1997, making it the fastest selling video game at the time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. An enhanced remake for the Nintendo DS titled Diddy Kong Racing DS was released February 6, 2007. It is the first game to spin-off from the Donkey Kong series. A racing game like Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing also has a distinctive adventure mode. Some of the playable characters would later appear in their own franchise titles. The game was partially intended to introduce these future franchise characters so that gamers would recognize them when these games were released. In Diddy Kong Racing, a player can choose to drive a car, hovercraft, or airplane, though a certain level may require that the player picks one of these.

Features

Each world contains several race tracks, an unlockable battle stage and a race against a boss character. Depending on the race track, players may have a choice of using a car, hovercraft or plane; this choice is restricted on some tracks. Each race track contains Zipper devices that give a short-term speed boost to racers that cross them, and balloons of various colors that provide powerups to racers. Diddy Kong Racing was very well received for it’s graphics, sound, but was criticized for being too similar to Mario Kart 64.