I both love and hate Diddy Kong Racing DS.

On the one hand, I've played Mario Kart so much that I've pretty much burned myself out on it and have been jonesing for some new tracks, new weapons, new drivers to play with.

On the other hand Diddy Kong Racing is no Mario Kart, and it's not meant to be.

I can deal with that. I understand it's a different game with its own aesthetic, but there are still some issues.

For instance, if you bump into things, you tend to get hung up, or at least can. Worse still, reversing is atrocious. I found that if you hit the reverse button at the same time as the D-pad in any direction the two actions cancel each other out and you just sit there. Which can be quite frustrating.

The graphics bug me too. They're chunky and a bit too childish for my tastes. Nintendo has character creation down to a fine art, so I'm not sure why they decided to dumb this particular game down.

If you can get past all of that the game can be quite fun.

Races are very much not like Mario Kart, there isn't any power sliding, thank god, nor do you have to worry about turbo starts. Well, at least not the turbo starts that involve button timing. Instead you have to fondle your DS' touchscreen to get the motor running at the start line.

The game also offers not just car racing, but the ability to race in hovercraft and planes. Unfortunately, planes really suffer from the getting stuck to the terrain issue, so it's not quite as fun as it could be.

I'll make sure to bring my DS and copy of the game with me to Barcade so I can play it with the readers who show up.

I was supposed to play against other media today, but the race time was during the middle of my flight and I don't think the pilot would have appreciated me using a latop, cellcard, DS dongle and DS during the flight. Brian Crecente

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