My love for Diddy I used to have was all washed away while playing this game.
I Used to love playing Diddy Kong Racing 64 and I was hoping that I could share that same sort of love with the DS version, but thats not happening. I was also hoping for a new game, not the same old game with downgrades (an American voiced Taj? WTF?)
If you've played the 64 game you know what to expect; by that I mean what levels to expect and what characters. You'll get the same ones (at least through the portion of game I stomached). The races are however unbalanced. They start off ridiculously easy and then get way to difficult. Your abilities don't change any, but the enemies all the sudden become faster and better. This doesn't add any enjoyment.
The game controls worse than the 64 version as well. It seems like they seemed to add maybe more realistic controlling? The hovercar is super slippery and there's also a slide feature (similar to Mario Kart DS) however it doesn't do you any good, in fact most of the time I ended up in the wall when I tried to use it. It basically turns you a slick 90 degrees instead of allowing you to slide.
There's a lot of little coins and things to collect to unlock features, but it's really not much fun. I remember collecting silver coins in the 64 version and getting through it, but thats not happening in this one. That sense of wanting to accomplish things is gone.
The sound and graphics are just about identical to the 64 version. This means they aren't bad, but not top of the line. Its no orchestra thats for sure. It gets the job done, minus the American voiced Taj which I mentioned earlier. Fairly bitter about that one, why? Basically it seems they took the old game, tried to make it better and broke it. If thats what your into, knock yourself out. But if you're just out there to race I must say to stick with Mario Kart DS for the time.