Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 21:28:54 +0000
From: Iwan Lamble <
[email protected]>
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----------------------------- racing ---------------------------------
spotter's guide
v1.1
by Iwan Lamble
Index___________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
Things to spot:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2. Music - Character specific music, echoing horns, music on the island.
3. Intentional graphics - Taj and TT fog, large faces, wheels, squash a
frog, flat plants.
4. Unintentional graphics - Going out to sea, Diddy's flahing hat,
snowman in tunnel, shadows on log, disappearing characters,
disappearing water, jumping off the viewing platform.
5. Stunts - Stunt plane, stunt hovercraft, AI error in Icicle Pyramid,
Targetting.
6. Magic codes
7. Credits
-------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION -----------------------------
Introduction____________________________________________________________
Diddy Kong Racing is one of, if not the, best game for the Nintendo 64.
Produced for Nintendo by UK-based Rare, DKR is what Mario Kart 64 should
have been. The animation is superb, there are loads of courses to race,
many varied 4-player battle modes and the idea of knowing which power
ups you are going to get makes for a much more tactical game than Mario
Kart. DKR allows you to race not only in carts but hovercrafts and
planes and provides a lasting challenge.
This FAQ *isn't* a guide to how to complete Diddy Kong Racing. In fact,
it isn't really a FAQ at all.
What I have tried to compile here is a collection of things to 'spot'.
Rare has polised this game up to near-perfection and there are loads of
nice touches that can easily be missed.
This FAQ is for people who have finished the game or become terminally
stuck. Trying to see all the things mentioned should enhance the life of
the game by... well, at least half an hour.
It features intentional graphics and music effects that you might have
missed, unintentional graphical errors to provide ammusement, stunts you
can pull off in the vehicles and the ever-present magic codes.
E-mail me at
[email protected] if you have anything to add to
this FAQ or corrections to make. Anyone reqesting game help through this
address will be re-directed to the following sites which have DKR
guides:
www.rwn.com
www.gamefaqs.com
[If you want your guide added to this list e-mail me at the above
address]
--------------------------- 2. MUSIC ---------------------------------
Character-specific music________________________________________________
Slow down when you're going through the character select screen. As you
move over the different characters, listen carefully... Spotted it? Its
not too hard.
Each of the characters on the menu screen has their own instrument for
the melody of the theme tune. Also pay more attention to the
introduction sequence. As the characters are introduced, their theme
plays.
Echoing horns___________________________________________________________
Honk your horn in a tunnel and it will echo.
Music on the island_____________________________________________________
The music changing on the island is quite easy to notice when going
between the three main sections (normal music, sea music and snow music)
but there are others which are less easy to spot.
In the lake around Wizpig's face, Banjo's theme plays. This also happens
in the tunnel if you stay still for long enough. Continue to stay still
in either of these locations and the 'animals singing' theme plays as it
does when you beat Wizpig the first time.
Get close to Taj, but don't bump into him and the theme tune turns into
a more oriental style. Get even closer to him and you can hear him
humming the theme tune as he walks along.
When travelling up the ramp to Dino Domain, a xylophone type of
instrument takes over the theme tune.
---------------------- 3. INTENTIONAL GRAPHICS ------------------------
Taj and TT fog__________________________________________________________
I thought this was so obvious it wasn't worth noting, but some people
seem not to notice it until its pointed out to them.
When you 'talk' to Taj, a red fog covers the nearby landscape (it looks
like the top of the screen gets a red tint, usually) and when you talk
to TT the same happens but with a white fog.
Large faces_____________________________________________________________
The faces of some of the characters (Pipsy, Bumper, Krunch) appear
Wizpig-style on an icy cliff-face in Snowball Valley. Just before you go
through to the snowball run of the level's title, look to the side to
see the faces.
These are also featured briefly in the ending sequence.
Wheels__________________________________________________________________
Its very easy to miss the wheels of the plane. Put in the code for big
characters and set the view as close to the driver as possible. Now,
when you take off and land you can watch the little wheels of your plane
go in and out.
Squash a frog___________________________________________________________
Go on, squash one.
Flat plants_____________________________________________________________
Look closely at those trees and flowers... They look the same from all
directions. Modelling them in 3D would probably take too many polygons
or something. I pretty sure its not a mistake, don't worry.
--------------------- 4. UNINTENTIONAL GRAPHICS -----------------------
Going out to sea________________________________________________________
You can't. Its the first thing everyone tries when they go into that
part of the island. Why? I don't know. Prehaps its memories of Mario
Kart on the SNES when you could jump over the walls and ride out as far
as you liked.
It does seem strange when you get hit by thin air and the actual amount
of the bay that you can fly in is small but I think its obvious why Rare
didn't include the option.
However, there is something to notice.
Go past the light house (/remains of light house) and stick to the right
(the cliff face). The cliff ends just where you get 'hit' by the air to
stop you going further out to sea. But turn to the right and you'll see
that the other side of the cliff does exist, sort of... It fades out
very close by, but its nice to know that Rare weren't cutting corners
(sorry, that was intentional)
Diddy's flashy hat______________________________________________________
Turn Diddy around to face you in a hovercraft by holding down the
acceleration and one of the shoulder buttons and pushing the stick as
far as it will go left or right.
As you turn, you will notice that Diddy's hat reflects the light. As
Diddy turns 'towards you', however, the brim of his baseball cap appears
to flash from red to white.
Snowman in the tunnel___________________________________________________
On Timber's island, sometimes when you're racing about for a moment it
looks like a snowman has appeared in the tunnel. It is, of course, just
a graphical glitch.
To see the 'snowman' you need to be on the grass on the left side of the
yellow track near to the way (through the water) to the beach and facing
the nearest entrance to the tunnel. You should head towards the tunnel
and a white area will appear in the middle of the tunnel.
What you are seeing, it becomes obvious as you near the tunnel and the
glitch disappears, is the sky through a section of the tunnel that isn't
being drawn at that distance. The tunnel on the island is in a y-shape:
A/ 1 /
.-^ .-^
.-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -^
.-^ ................ \
/ / \ \
/ 2 / \ 3 \
To see the glitch, you need to be looking at the wall of tunnel 1
through tunnel 3. You need to aim yourself at the wall roughly where A
is (where the back wall of the tunnel is as far away as possible)
Shadows on a log on Timber's island_____________________________________
In the beach area of the main island there is a waterfall which you can
go up to get to a river which takes you to the snow land. Above this
waterfall is a log (which is the tunnel from the main area which leads
you nowhere - tunnel 1 on the map for the snowman glitch).
Whilst in a plane, fly at the bottom half of this log. Your shadow will
appear on the top of the log instead of the bottom.
This effect is best seen when the view is as far away as possible, with
Pipsy and with the small characters cheat on.
Disappearing characters_________________________________________________
This is a very tricky glitch to do.
Get to the beach in a plane. Its best to chose Pipsy or TipTup, small
characters and set the view to as far out as possible - that way you can
force as many polygons onto the screen as possible.
Now, get to the beach section of the island. It looks something like
this:
in
/^^^\ ... in = entrance to beach
| | wf / wf = waterfall
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ {} = island with entrance to levels
| X
/ {}
You need to spin your character clockwise about X (between the island
[circle on the map] and 'viewing platform' at the end of the log)
Hold in a shoulder button for a tight turn and keep the acceleration
down. You want to make the N64 have to draw as many polygons as possible
(also notice that there is no slowdown here).
Now, keeping the stick held to the right, move it from the centre
(vertically) to the bottom (vertically) and hold it there.
After a few loops, your driver will disappear from view for a second or
two (sometimes this happens twice per loop). Sometimes the character
will disappear for a long time, sometimes it'll just appear to flash.
Its not as impressive as some of the other glitches, but it is strangely
satisfying when you manage to pull it off.
Disappearing water______________________________________________________
Making the camera go under the water is quite an easy thing to do, and
happens a lot in some tracks.
On the island, however, you can make the water disappear completely. The
effect is best seen on the river that joins the snow section to the
beach section. It is also best to have the view as far out as possible.
Be a plane and land on the water (you must be stopped on the water, you
can drive in off the side if you want, but don't take off again). Now
simply hold the stick down and steer yourself left and right. The water
will disappear until you let the stick go up again and you will be able
to drive around the river bed. This doesn't work out at sea.
Jumping off the viewing platform________________________________________
You can jump off the platform overlooking the beach area (through the
log tunnel) if you have a hovercraft. Just jump up on top of the wall in
one jump and use another jump to jump off the edge.
--------------------------- 5. STUNTS ----------------------------------
Stunt plane_____________________________________________________________
Most guides tell you how to do stunts in your plane to slightly alter
the direction of your plane or give you a small speed boost. Just tap
one of the shoulder buttons twice and hold a direction:
Left: Barrel roll to the left
Right: Barrel roll to the right
Up: Do a loop downwards
Down: Do a loop upwards
However, what they fail to tell you (usually) is that if you hold in the
shoulder button after pressing it the sceond time then, if you do an
upwards or downwards loop, your plane will stop mid-loop and continue to
travel upside-down in reverse for a short period before completing the
loop.
Stunt hovercraft________________________________________________________
There aren't any stunts to do with the hovercraft really, but spinning
on the spot has nice effects.
This is best done on Darkwater Beach or on the island where you've got
lots of space. Hold down the acceleration and one of the shoulder
buttons and push the stick as far as it will go left or right.
This will cause the your hovercraft to go into a tight spin. The effects
of this differ between the characters.
Pipsy: faces you almost instantly
Light characters: you can make them turn 180 degrees to face you if you
try hard enough
Bumper: he does the heavy and light character effects at the same time,
causing the view to look down on him from above, into his hovercraft.
Heavy characters: they won't turn around, but if you hold the stick down
as well as to the left or right then they'll tip over 45 degrees, ears
skimming the water
AI error on Icicle Pyramid______________________________________________
On the Icicle Pyramid multiplayer stage there is a slight artificial
intelligence error that can cause characters to end up in an infinite
loop.
This happens on the second level of the palace (the ice with the
balloons on) and causes the character to keep going in a circle around
the centre of the ice (around the balloons) without falling off and
usually missing all the balloons.
Getting a computer-controlled character to do this is hard and if hit or
if another character gets too close to them then they break out of the
loop anyway.
The best way to see the effect, therefore, is when you come first on the
level and the computer AI takes over you character to drive him/her
around waiting for you to press a button.
To get into this state of loop, you need to destroy the last person as
you drive between the centre of the balloons. You have to be moving at
this point, not stopped in the middle. This is quite tricky to time
correctly, but the results are good and mildly humorous. And, no, the
character never comes out of the loop. At least not in the first five
minutes or so, anyway.
Targeting_______________________________________________________________
If you have a homing missle, hold down the Z trigger. A target will pop
up showing you who you will hit if you release the trigger. Release the
trigger to fire. This is very useful in Icicle Pyramid because the
target can see other characters through walls (although you can't shoot
at them through walls).
-------------------------- 6. MAGIC CODES ------------------------------
Magic codes_____________________________________________________________
These are published almost everywhere, but, in case you missed them,
here they are. These codes are entered in the 'magic codes' section of
the options screen and only work in time trial mode (with the exception
of JOINTVENTURE):
Balloon-related codes:
BYEBYEBALLOONS - All the balloons disappear
TOXICOFFENDER - All balloons are green
BODYARMOR - All balloons are yellow
OPPOSITESATTRACT - All balloons are rainbow
BOMBSAWAY - All balloons are red
ROCKETFUEL - All balloons are blue
BYEBYEBALLOONS - All the balloons disappear
FREEFORALL - Items collected are automatically at fully power (try
this one on Darkwater Beach - it makes it much more
fun against the computer)
Banana-related codes:
VITAMINB - No limit to the number of bananas you can collect
before your speed no longer increases
FREEFRUIT - Start each level with 10 bananas
BOGUSBANANAS - Bananas reduce your speed
NOYELLOWSTUFF - The bananas still appear, but do nothing
Player-related codes:
JOINTVENTURE - Two player adventure
BLABBERMOUTH - Random character noises are played instead of horn
sound
ARNOLD - Big Characters
TEENYWEENIES - Small Characters
OFFROAD - No speed loss by going on rough ground
DOUBLEVISION - Two players can be the same character
Misc. codes:
TIMETOLOSE - The computer AI increases
ZAPTHEZIPPERS - Remove zippers
JUKEBOX - Music test (in audio options screen)
WHODIDTHIS - Runs credits
----------------------------- 7. CREDITS -------------------------------
Credits_________________________________________________________________
Iwan Lamble (that's me) found most of the stuff in this FAQ.
My brother, Geraint, showed me the Icicle Pyramid AI glitch, how to
bring up targets, jumping off the viewing platform and the echoing
horns.
The codes are from www.rwn.com (although I've since seen them in many
other sources and I doubt that the Rare Network were the first to get
them, either)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Iwan Lamble
