Two Games, One (Grand Prix) Cup
This week, two kart racing games enter, but only one can leave. It’s time for a cartridge cage match… A sixty-four bit showdown… A Nintendo… knife fight? That’s enough alliteration for 9:00 on a Saturday morning.
In this corner: Our reigning champion, having sold over nine million copies worldwide, its titular character appearing in over 200 video game titles since 1981… the Red Menace… the King of Kart Racing….
MARIO KART 64
And in this corner: Our challenger, a spin-off of a spin-off, never having achieved quite the popularity of our champion despite selling almost a million copies in two weeks before Christmas 1997…
DIDDY KONG RACING 64
Both games featured cutting edge graphics, both were for the Nintendo 64, and both came out in 1997. Because Mario Kart hit shelves first, however, and because the N64 Mario Kart was a remake of an SNES game with the same name, people had more time to get used to it, and grow accustomed to the cutesy go-kart racing style. When Diddy Kong Racing arrived in November, nearly nine months after Mario Kart 64 dropped in North America, nearly everyone saw it as a cheap knock-off. However… I will attempt to make the case that Diddy Kong Racing is the superior game. If Mario Kart is Cheers, Diddy Kong Racing is a show about Norm’s long lost son Billy who happens to own a bar. And that bar is better than Cheers. I know I won’t convert the die-hard Mario Kart fans, but let’s look at the facts.
1. Diddy Kong Racing has an Adventure mode.
Sure, it’s a racing game, but in addition to all of the race tracks available in multiplayer mode, Diddy Kong racing also features a single-player Story mode. All the tracks available on multiplayer are also unlockable or discoverable in the Single Player adventure, and the adventure mode also features several extras, such as difficult races against several “Bosses,” quests to find and collect items on the various race tracks, and somewhat non-linear world design which encourages exploration. Granted, the story is geared towards eight year-olds, and the world is fairly limited, due to the fact that most of the game’s memory went into the racing gameplay, but I don’t see Mario Kart having an Adventure option.
2. Diddy Kong’s Power-ups Aren’t Based on Race Position
In both games, there are items strewn about the various race tracks which your racer can pick up and use. Generally speaking, the different types of power-ups in one game serve a very similar purpose to their counterparts in the other, with some being unique to each. There are items you can pick up and shoot at other racers to slow them down, items you can activate to give yourself a speed boost, items you can drop behind you on the track to try and trip up your opponents, etc.
In Mario Kart, all the various power-ups come from little question-mark boxes placed in strategic locations around the courses. You never know quite what kind of item you’re going to get, and the quality of the power-ups you’ll receive depend on your place in the race. If you’re in first place when you drive over a power-up box, be prepared to groan as you consistently get shitty items. If you’re in dead last, get ready for lots of golden mushrooms (extremely powerful speed boosts), stars (speed boost + temporary invulnerability), blue shells (missiles that specifically target the guy in first place) and the like. Why does Mario Kart use this asinine Socialist reward system? My guess is that there are two reasons – (1) To make people who suck at the game feel better about themselves, and (2) Mario is a goddamn commie.
Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed the similarities before. Why do you think Mario wears red? For more proof, just do a Google image search for Stalin Mario, like I did. Goddamn I love the internet.
In Diddy Kong racing, you know what power-ups you’re getting. Red balloons will always give you missiles. Blue balloons will always give you speed boosts. In total, there are 5 categories of useful items, and if you hold on to an item received from one balloon type and drive over that same color of balloon again, it will “power-up” your item. Each type of item can be powered up twice, meaning each category has 3 levels of strength, for a total of 15 items you can use to get ahead of the other racers. Because they’re not randomized like in Mario Kart, you can strategize appropriately, and because the quality of the item doesn’t increase the worse you’re doing, it forces you to actually actively improve your gameplay rather than count on charity-based handouts.
3. Diddy Kong Racing has More Tracks
It’s time for some math. Mario Kart 64 has four “Cups” you can race for, and each “Cup” features a set of race tracks on which to play. In addition, the game has an unlockable “Battle Mode” with its own set of tracks where you and other racers can go head-to-head in a competition to be the last kart standing. Each “Cup” has 4 tracks, for a total of 16 normal race courses, and in addition there are 4 courses specifically for the Battle Mode game type. It is also possible to unlock “mirrored” or “flipped” versions of the original 16 race tracks, giving us a grand total of 16 + 16 + 4 = 36 tracks
Diddy Kong Racing features 25 normal race tracks, available in both Single Player Adventure and Multiplayer modes. As in Mario Kart, you can also unlock mirror-image versions of each of these tracks. There are also 4 “Battle Mode” style tracks. This gives us a total of 25 +25 + 4 = 54 tracks available for Single or Multiplayer. In addition, because Diddy Kong has an Adventure mode which Mario Kart lacks, the game also features 6 Boss tracks + 6 mirrored versions of these Boss tracks, or 66 total Single Player courses. Both of these numbers, you’ll notice, are higher than 36.
4. Diddy Kong Racing has More Vehicles
Although both Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing are essentially similar go-kart racing games, we’ve already seen that the latter has several features not found in the former. Not only is there an entire extra game mode, there are more tracks on which you and your friends can play. One of the biggest disparities between the two games, however, is the fact that Diddy Kong Racing far exceeds our kart-racing expectations by giving us an additional two vehicle types we can race in: A hovercraft and an airplane! Not every track supports all three vehicles, but most tracks allow you to choose between at least two of these, and probably 50% or more give you the option of using any one of the three.
Total vehicle types in Mario Kart = 1 (kart)
Total vehicle types in Diddy Kong = 3 (kart, hovercraft, plane)
If you count each track + vehicle combination as a separate race course experience, that brings the total number of playable courses in Diddy Kong to well over 100. I don’t even want to do the math.
5. Diddy Kong Racing has More of… Well, Everything Else
Diddy Kong Racing features more playable characters than Mario Kart. Both start out letting you choose between 8 playable racers, but Diddy Kong has two extra characters which can be unlocked during the course of play. Ten is more than eight.
Diddy Kong Racing has more multiplayer-friendly cheat codes than Mario Kart 64.
Diddy Kong (in my opinion) has better music, better graphics, and smoother gameplay than Mario Kart 64.
What is Mario Kart left with, in the end? Nostalgia? More familiar characters? The fact of the matter is, when all is said and done, it can’t stand up. And I’m not a Mario Kart hater! I love Mario Kart 64 – it’s a great game! However, if you haven’t given Diddy Kong Racing a chance – pick it up. It’s even better.
Mario Kart is down for the count! The title of Champion, and our Grand Prix cup, go to the spin-off of a spin-off.
Categories: Random, Reviews Tags: video game
Game Review: Unreal Tournament 3
Unreal Tournament 3 for the Xbox 360 – 4/5
Unreal Tournament is a “love it or hate it” franchise. For gamers looking for lots and lots… and lots… of shooting, exploding, fragging, and all-around mayhem, these games are among the best in the genre. Unreal took the gaming world by storm with it was initially released in 1999, and there have been a steady supply of sequels updating the graphics, gameplay, arsenals, and the like – meaning this is one of the most reproduced and updated game franchises out there, especially in the first-person-shooter genre. Rob and I picked up Unreal Tournament 3 for our new Xbox 360 the other day, the latest in the series. No, it’s not the third Unreal game, but actually the eighth – the games are “numbered” differently according to the graphics engine they utilize, and thus this game is merely the third in the franchise to use the latest iteration of the Unreal rendering software… get it? Unreal Tournament 3 comes directly after Unreal Tournament 2004, but is actually #8 in the Unreal series. Now that that’s cleared up…
Fans of the previous Unreal games should find much familiar ground here, enough to make the learning curve very small, if not non-existant. Players new to the series may take a little time getting used to the controls, different game types, and so on, but most of the content should be familiar to anyone who has played a shooter before – run around, shoot enemies, occasionally capture a flag or two. What sets Unreal apart from its competitors is a very smooth and fast gameplay experience and a lot of multiplayer support: This is a great game to play with a few of your friends, online or on the couch. One of the best, period.
Interestingly, UT3 has a Campaign or “Story” mode that moves away from the classic arena-style shoot-em-up game experience of Unreal games in the past. The fast-paced and relentless multiplayer modes are still there, but for some reason the game developers decided that players might be interested in the backstory behind these bloodbaths. I’m not sure I see eye-to-eye with the creators on this point, especially considering how… thin… the story seems to be. Suffice it to say it involes lots of flag capturing and tries humorously to explain the concept of respawning in combat, aided apparently by the help of little technological advancements call “respawners.” No really, that’s what they’re called. And there’s something about an alien invasion, I think… to be honest, I don’t think anyone is ever going to care about the half-assed story behind the carnage. We just want to shoot each other… over and over again. And really, that’s all the fans of Unreal have ever wanted.
Did I mention that one of the major NPCs talks like he’s straight out of a 1980s rap video?
The plotline aside, I would recommend that one play through the Campaign mode before jumping into multiplayer, especially if you’ve never played an UT game before. And if you don’t like the online scene, or don’t have any friends to play with, there’s always the “Instant Action” mode where you can pick a map, gametype, and gameplay modifiers (called mutators), and play against up to 15 computer controlled bots.
The graphics are nice, but not as nice as some other 360 shooters I’ve seen. It doesn’t help matters that the screen is usually very busy during gameplay, with very visually distracting levels and tons of bullets flying across the screen 90% of the time. The game engine does allow for a very smooth experience, however, and once you condition your eyes and your trigger fingers you’ll be getting Killing Streaks left and right.
We have yet to exhaust all the content, but I would imagine that once you’ve completed the Campaign, single-player or co-op, there would be a high amount of replay value, because there are several difficulty levels, each tier increasing the intelligence of the bot AI. A variety of gametypes and continued support on Xbox Live ensures a long replay life for multiplayer gaming, as well. All in all, a solid title, as long as you know what you’re getting into: An epic story, this is not – this is blood, guts, and flak cannons, pure and simple. 4/5 nukes.
Categories: Reviews Tags: video game