Diddy Kong Racing is a 1997 kart racing game developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64. The game revolves around Diddy Kong and his friends' attempt to defeat the intergalactic antagonist, a wizard pig named Wizpig, through winning a series of races. The player takes control of any of the featured characters throughout the game. Diddy Kong Racing features five worlds with four racetracks each, and the ability to drive a car, hovercraft, or pilot an aeroplane.
Development began after the release of Killer Instinct 2 (1996), and was intended to be an adventure game known as Wild Cartoon Kingdom in its early stages. As time progressed, the focus of development shifted from a Walt Disney World-influenced racing game to a unique title named Pro-Am 64, in which Nintendo had no involvement. Due to the delays of Banjo-Kazooie, Rare felt that they needed a stronger intellectual property to attract a wider audience for a game scheduled to release before Christmas 1997, thus making the decision to centre the game around Diddy Kong.
Diddy Kong Racing received critical acclaim upon release. The graphics, audio, and gameplay were among the most lauded aspects, while some criticism was directed at the game's repetition. It has sold 4.8 million copies since its release and stands as the Nintendo 64's eighth best-selling game. A sequel named Donkey Kong Racing was in development for the GameCube, but was abandoned in August 2002, one month before Microsoft purchased Rare for £375 million. An enhanced remake for the Nintendo DS titled Diddy Kong Racing DS was released worldwide in early 2007; it is the most recent Nintendo-published game to be developed by Rare.
Gameplay
In Diddy Kong Racing, players can choose one of ten characters, who have access to three different vehicles: car, hovercraft and aeroplane. The car is an all-round vehicle, but it is the slowest on certain surfaces like sand and water. The hovercraft is designed for both sand and water areas, but lacks in acceleration and manoeuvrability. The aeroplane is designed to access aerial areas; it is good at acceleration and manoeuvring, but has the slowest speed. Each racetrack has a set of boosters known as "zippers" that temporarily boost the player's speed, as well as featuring regenerating balloons of various colours that provide power-ups. There are five different types of balloons: red, blue, green, yellow, and rainbow. Red balloons grant missiles to attack racers ahead, blue balloons grant a speed boost, yellow balloons grant shields to protect the player from attacks, green balloons grant deployable traps to delay other racers, and rainbow balloons grant a magnet ability that brings the player closer to the nearest racer. If multiple balloons of the same colour are picked up, the power-up is upgraded to a more powerful version. A total of two upgrades are available for each balloon. Additionally, racetracks contain non-regenerating bananas that add to speed when they are picked up. A maximum of ten bananas will improve the speed, but can also be obtained to prevent other players from gaining speed. If a racer gets hit, two bananas are deducted.
In "Adventure Mode", players control the racer of their choice to progress through the story. Players begin in the hub world, which links five interconnected worlds; Dino Domain, Snowflake Mountain, Sherbet Island, Dragon Forest, and Future Fun Land. The worlds are opened up by collecting balloons, except for Future Fun Land, which is unlocked after defeating Wizpig for the first time and rank 1st place in all four Trophy Races of the original worlds. Each world contains four racetracks, an unlockable battle stage, and a race against a boss character. If the player defeats Wizpig in Future Fun Land, obtains all amulet pieces and collect all the gold medals, the player will be able to play in a mode called "Adventure 2". In this mode, all the balloons change colour to platinum and the tracks are inverted from left to right. The game also features four battle modes which consist of two deathmatch maps, a capture-the-flag-style battle and a mode which involves opponents capturing eggs. The battle modes are not initially selectable, and must be unlocked by collecting special keys hidden in each of the worlds.
Plot The plot of Diddy Kong Racing is detailed in the instruction booklet. Timber the Tiger's parents go on holiday and leave their son in charge of the island they live on, prompting him and his friends to organize a race. Their enjoyment is interrupted when a sinister intergalactic pig-wizard named Wizpig arrives at Timber's Island and attempts to take it over after having conquered his own planet. He turns the island's four guardians (Tricky the Triceratops, Bluey the Walrus, Bubbler the Octopus, and Smokey the Dragon) into his henchmen. The only solution available to the island's inhabitants is to defeat Wizpig in an elaborate series of races that involve cars, hovercraft, and aeroplanes. Drumstick the Rooster, the best racer on the island, fails this challenge and is transformed into a frog by Wizpig's magic.
Timber hires a team of eight racers: Diddy Kong, the first recruit; Conker the Squirrel and Banjo the Bear, recruited by Diddy; Krunch the Kremling, Diddy's enemy who follows after him; Tiptup the Turtle, T.T. the Stopwatch, Pipsy the Mouse, and Bumper the Badger, all inhabitants of Timber's island. Aided by Taj, an Indian elephant-like genie residing on the island, they eventually complete all of Wizpig's challenges and confront Wizpig himself in a race and defeat him. Shortly afterward, Drumstick is turned back into a rooster, and Wizpig leaves for his home planet, Future Fun Land. Fearing that Wizpig will again attempt to invade Timber's Island, the islanders travel to Future Fun Land for a second challenge. When Wizpig loses the second race, the rocket he rides on malfunctions and launches him to the moon. However, an additional cutscene reveals Wizpig's spaceship flying through the sky, unscathed.
Development
Development of the game began after the release of Killer Instinct 2, in which a team was split into making Killer Instinct Gold for the Nintendo 64 and a new racing game for that console. During development, the game (initially a prehistoric time-traveller real-time strategy game) became influenced by Walt Disney World and soon evolved into an adventure game called Wild Cartoon Kingdom and later Adventure Racers, with which Nintendo had no involvement. The game would have allowed the playable characters to wander around outside of their vehicle in a theme park-inspired hub world. Some elements from the game's prehistoric time-traveller phase were retained, including its wooly mammoths. Around this time, Kevin Bayliss and programmer Chris Tilston worked on an adventure game prototype inspired by Disney's The Lion King, which had Bayliss' character Timber the Tiger (inspired by Kellogg's' Frosted Flakes mascot Tony the Tiger's son Tony Jr., Simba, and a tiger cub that he pet with his girlfriend at the time) clambering around over terrain, which was folded into the Adventure Racers design concept. In June 1997, the game was altered to Pro-Am 64, an unrelated follow-up to the NES racing game R.C. Pro-Am. According to Lee Schuneman and Bayliss, the Pro-Am 64 project had Timber as the main character, and featured three-wheeled trikes in contrast to radio-controlled cars. Other characters created for the project included Tiptup the Turtle (whose name was repurposed from a different turtle character in the canceled Project Dream), Bumper the Badger (originally colored blue), Drumstick the Rooster (inspired by the "Cosmic Cockerel" mascot in Software Farm's logo in the 1982 ZX81 video game Forty Niner, Foghorn Leghorn and the chickens from The Muppet Show, and originally without overalls), and Krash the Crocodile. A kangaroo character named Roo was planned to be included, with her boxing gloves reused from a Thai boxer character that Bayliss had modelled for an unmade Killer Instinct game, but was eventually replaced with Pipsy the Mouse. Pipsy's design (initially with pink fur and yellow attire) was a modified version of the main character from the canceled game Astro Mouse. The characters were planned to have expressions in-game, but this idea was dropped due to polygon limitations.
With Banjo-Kazooie being delayed until the summer of 1998, the team was adamant for a release of an AAA video game in time for 1997's Christmas season. With the change in release schedule, some at Rare felt that Pro-Am 64 did not have a strong enough intellectual property. Thus Rare changed the licence to feature Diddy Kong. According to Lee Musgrave, Rare chose to use Diddy Kong rather than Donkey Kong, and Nintendo "enjoyed" the decision. Once the intellectual property was changed, the team was left to adapt the visual aesthetics of the game and packaging before it could be released. Krash was slightly altered to be a Kremling, and was renamed "Krunch". Musgrave recalled that the ultimate goal of the game was to make it "run as fast" as Mario Kart 64, which proved difficult during development as the latter game utilised 2D character sprites whereas Diddy Kong Racing used fully 3D models. Musgrave later attributed the success of the overall project to the "small team" of 14 people who worked on it. In an October 2012 interview, Musgrave said that Timber would have been the main character of Pro-Am 64 had the intellectual property for Diddy Kong Racing not been conceived. Two of the characters who featured in Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo the Bear and Conker the Squirrel, starred in games (Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day, respectively) which were unveiled to the public before Diddy Kong Racing, at the June 1997 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), but ultimately not released until after Diddy Kong Racing. Rare stated that they chose not to exhibit Diddy Kong Racing at E3 because of the proprietary animation technology used in the game.
The game's soundtrack was composed by David Wise. The soundtrack was first released in Japan on 1 April 1998, with 42 tracks, while a version of the album was released in Europe with the same number of tracks. For its United States release, only 16 tracks were featured. The disc itself was specially shaped in the form of Diddy Kong's head, which was unplayable in certain CD players. The sound effects were created by Graeme Norgate. Voices were provided by Kevin Bayliss (Bubbler, Wizpig), Johnni Christensen (Tiptup, Smokey), Eveline Novakovic (Pipsy), Keith Rabbette (Bluey), Lee Ray (Drumstick, Taj), Lee Schuneman (Bumper), Chris Seavor (Conker), Dean Smith (T.T.), Joe Stamper Jr. (Timber, Kid Background Voices), Kimberly Stamper (Kid Background Voices), and Chris Sutherland (Diddy Kong, Banjo, Krunch, Tricky).
Release Due to most of the Nintendo 64's planned 1997 Christmas season line-up being delayed until 1998, Diddy Kong Racing became the main Nintendo 64 release for the holiday shopping season, and a majority of Nintendo's $200 million advertising budget for the entire year was allocated to promoting the game. The game had a $20 million marketing budget in North America. Diddy Kong Racing also held the distinction of being the only game in the North American Christmas season line-up for which development was contracted by Nintendo; the other two first-party Nintendo 64 games in the line-up, Bomberman 64 and Mischief Makers, were both licensed from Japanese third-party publishers.
Reception