Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 21:28:54 +0000 From: Iwan Lamble ------------------------------- the ---------------------------------- |^^^^\ |^||^^^^\ |^^^^\ \^\ /^/ |^^|/^^/ /^^^^\ |^ \ |^^| /^^^^^| | |\ || || |\ || |\ | \ ^ / | / / | _/\_ || \| || /^^^^ | | | || || | | || | | | | | | < | \ / || \ \ || | .... | |/ || || |/ || |/ | | | | \ \ | |/\| || |\ || \..| | |..../ |.||..../ |..../ |.| |..|\..\ \..../ |..| \..| \.....| ----------------------------- 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 webmaster@lamble.demon.co.uk 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