Diddy Kong Racing

Excellent.

better than mario kart even though the driving mechanics and maps are probably worse. but theres fuckin planes, items power up, boss races, a rare-style world in a legit single player mode. at first i was like who the fuck are these characters til some favs came like banjo. and i had a wizpig toy and dont even know what its frommmm lool. dropped from 65 cuz too hard even with save states lol

Ok racing game. The single player is ok. You can race a car, fly a plane or drive a boat.

Played through the first group of tracks and thought 'this is preety boring, but it might get harder so I'll stick with it', then the game told me I had to race the _same tracks_ except this time I was collecting pointless googahs. So I quit. It's possibly I'll go back but unlikely.

The mascot kart racer has been one of the most predictable and over-saturated genres ever since Mario Kart conjured it into existence, so I do have to give Rare credit for trying to breathe some more variety into things. It's an interesting novelty, at least, though I do honestly wonder whether this genre works better for pick-up-and-play anyway. The controls are... acceptable.

Way more creative than the bland Mario Kart 64, but its frame rate makes it nearly unplayable in multiplayer.

Rare couldn't resist the urge to go "full Rare" and add in excessive collectables and doo-dads that you have to gather all of to advance, and the controls aren't quite as tight as Mario Kart 64. But overall the game has a nice atmosphere and tracks and I admire its ambition for adding adventure game tropes like a (rudimentary) plot, overworld and boss battles to racing game formula.

nice game

The game has one of the best campaign modes in a racing game I've ever played. It requires you to not only have a good grasp of how to use the core mechanics properly but also be good at understanding level layout and be consistent in routing. It may be overly punishing in that regard, but the use of collectibles is actually good in making you revaluate how you approach each race. Mechanically the other vehicles are kind of superfluous, but everything controls pretty well.