This week I came up with a new way to select games to play. I pick a random genre on allgame.com using random.org to get a number from 1 to 15, and then sort the games by rating and look down the list until I see one I want to play. I generated an 8, which means the Racing genre and saw Diddy Kong Racing (DKR) for N64 near the top of the list. I have this game still in its box for N64 and haven't played it in ages. So I packed up my N64 and the game to take with me when I go to my friend Mark's place on Sunday.
DKR DS selection screen
Then I noticed DKR was remade on DS. So I ran out and got that at Gamestop for $15. I only had time to erase old saves and see the first menu screens so far, but the music is already getting me primed to get back into the Adventure mode. What character do I choose though? There's:
Diddy Kong
Dixie Kong
Tiny Kong
Krunch (alligator)
Tip Tup (turtle)
Pipsy (mouse)
Timber (tiger)
Bumper (badger)
Drumstick (a rooster), T.T. (a stopwatch), Wizpig, and Taj (an elephant) are all unlockables.
DKR N64 Selection Screen
The N64 version includes:
Krunch
Diddy Kong
Bumper (badger)
Banjo (bear)
Conker (squirrel)
Tip Tup (turtle)
Pipsy (mouse)
Timber (tiger)
I guess T.T. (stopwatch) and Drumstick (rooster) are unlockables. I'm going to need suggestions as to who to choose there as well for Sunday.
I think on Sunday I'm going to segment my play time to three three hours periods. The first will be with Diddy Kong Racing, the second with checking Xbox Live sales and EDF 2025 and the third with Silent Hill: Book of Memories on Vita and hope daftman isn't too frustrated with me to continue some co-op.
It's hard selecting games from so rich a horn-of-plenty as we have these days. A guy's gotta go to extreme measures to make choices.
I'm random when it comes to picking a game. I may start a few until I come across one that really grabs me. As for Diddy Kong Racing, I got nothing for ya. I haven't played a Donkey King game other than the original and Donkey Kong Jr in the arcade.
I don't know how I stumbled across Diddy Kong Racing back in the late 90's, but after playing it a little bit, I began to really like it.
Never owned Diddy Kong Racing, but I played it plenty of times on the N64 and DS to really enjoy it.
I've never played the DS version. I can't wait to get into it. I've had so little time this week, I haven't played anything.
I played Diddy Kong Racing on the neighbors' N64 a lot. Yup.
This Lobby Theme has always been in my head ever since I first played it back in '97.
I loved DK Racing. The whole family played it a lot on the N64
I played it with my friend Mark, who I still play games with, and I showed it to my girlfriend. She was interested for like five seconds.
My favorite characters to use in Diddy Kong Racing were Bumper the Badger and Tiptup the Turtle.
DKR was a great game, but it was also the N64 game that caused me to get a PSOne, the first non-Nintendo console I ever owned. You see, DKR was that year's big holiday N64 release, and while it was a good game, it wasn't good enough to carry the system through a holiday season. The PSOne had much more promising games, so even though I couldn't afford it at the time (I was a poor college student), I bought a PSOne anyway. One of the smartest purchases I ever made, as I was reviewing PSOne games left and right for a couple of newspapers after that.
Thank heavens someone actually gave me an idea as to who to choose. I was getting worried for a moment there. I'll do Bumper on N64 and Tip Tup on DS.
Interesting story. At the time, I wasn't really aware of what was coming out and which system had better games. I was picking up everything I could find for cheap at flea markets and such and just trying things.
allgame.com? Why not just assign games to a 12 sided dice roll and decide how to play from there?
The die would have to be a chiliagon to handle everything I want to play. This way I limit myself to looking at the best rated games first within a randomly chosen genre. I don't want it totally random; I just need some limiting factors to help me make a decision. It's a little weird, I know.
You know everytime I read your blogs there is always a game I find that I want to try. Do you work for GameStop and know I will most likely go looking for these games? 
I want to try Diddy Kong Racing now, but I might hold off for a bit...until I actually go to a GameStop, spot it, and a couple of minutes later leave the store with a new game.
It's probably just because I jump around to so many different games all the time. I'm bound to peak someone's interests eventually.
DKR is a fun, despite my initial crankiness with the N64 game. I'm trying to find time to play more of the DS version. I won a few races in it and it controls just fine.