Kart Racing Round Up

It's only when one plays an huge amount of Diddy Kong Racing, that one begins to understand the iconic beauty, finely crafted polish and awesome playabilty that oozes from every bit of Mario Kart DS.

Whilst DKR totally has my attention at the moment (and remember, this is the game of the moment on a huge banquet table of complete and total handheld all you can eat smorgasbord), it's a pretty rough hewn, by the numbers gig. After getting thrashed in another hell for leather hovercraft boing-a-thon, I decided to swap gameslugs and fire up MKDS to see how the two lined up.

Mario's familiar insane j-pop blared out an obvious message -- that for all of Diddy and the gang's efforts, the plumber still tops the podium in the Ninty leagues this time round. DKR certainly arrives at the party with a convincing swagger, bringing the collecting hook of the last episode, and throws in a fun vehicle upgrade and extra item shop for bait. This had me criss crossing the lobby while I raced more familiar courses to pick up easy coins to add a new body kit or shocks pack to my kart, plane and hovercraft. This has added juice when you discover that leaving the beaten track to go after juicy strings of coins means you'll undoubtedly lose -- and will forfeit your coins until you win.

Back at Mushroom Kingdom, things looked, for some reason better, even after all this time. Sure, the models in Mario's world look pretty chunky, with triangular exhausts and odd flippers instead of arms, wrists, hands and fingers; but the game moves in a much more sophisticated way. What becomes obvious from playing is that while DKR is running at 30 frames a second, MKDS is running closer to 60 fps, and looks a lot more fluid as a rsult. The animations have more frames, so the flicker animation effect appears less. That, coupled with the polish that 15 years of Mario Kart games gives, and the adrenalin still grabs me in MKDS more than in the newcomer.

The polish in Mario continues through the menus, too. DK feels less clean, more of a hurdle to overcome to get a mobile racing fix. Mario's tried and tested menu navigation will never break -- again, one just has to mash the A button until the race begins.

I'll tire of DKR before too much longer, I can feel it, but it's nice to have it as a good racer after Mario is all done. If I had to choose though, old Jump Man would win easly.