Not everyone celebrates a holiday in the December month, but a good majority of us on the planet endure the winter season at least. (apologies to Australia, and other seasonally hot parts of Earth this feature isn’t so relatable for)
So as a means of kicking off this new site. To accept winter’s cold grip. To ring in the holidays. Plus to also to rehash an idea I did on tumblr years ago that I had fun with and feel I can build upon…
Expect a daily update throughout the month covering anything from a great winter feeling piece of video game music (original & covers), great winter season settings in video games past to present, brief nostalgia bursts of great gaming memories of past holiday breaks from childhood, and whatever else ties in well.
Starting off Day #1 of this month long foray is Diddy Kong Racing. A personal favourite of mine from the N64 and a great stand out from it’s peers title in the “Kart Racer” genre. Instead of simply being a series of Grand Prix’s to roll through, DKR’s single player had it’s own hub world not too dissimilar from Super Mario 64’s.
Instead of Stars like Mario 64, your main currency in this game is balloons, which you’ll start to rack up through winning races, special challenges, battles, boss fights, or finding hidden balloons in the hub world. Different parts of the hubworld only become open to you once you’ve earned enough Balloons to go through and it’s the 2nd area you’ll unlock that has lead me to bring this game to your attention today.
“Snowflake Mountain”. Once in, you’ll open up to yourself to 4 new race tracks, a battle arena, and later a boss fight. Each of those is both wintry by name and wintry by nature in being Snow/ Ice laden landscapes with a highly fitting soundtrack behind them.
Walrus Cove
Everfrost Peak (soundtrack rip)
Rare have always had some great musicians on staff throughout their history and you’ll find great atmospheric music in almost any of their games. So don’t be surprised to see more mentions from them.
I still have fond memories from Christmas 1997 with Diddy Kong Racing. My high school friend got it closely after it released in Europe so I managed to get a quick play on it through his copy. Not to mention my beloved N64 Magazine gave it a favourable review score, and I believe it was even well liked on the old “Gamesmaster TV show” that used to air in the UK.
So once I got my own copy on Christmas Day. My 11 year old self could not deal with the idea that I’d be going a big chunk of the day without my N64 being over at my Nan & Grandads house eating Christmas Dinner. So like any passionate gamer kid I packed up my N64 with that 1 game, and quietly hooked it up to an upstairs bedroom TV and played as much as I could between food offerings and eventually taking a break to play a game of Ludo with my Nan and my little sister.
I don’t think a Christmas has gone by since that I don’t think of potentially playing a bit of Diddy Kong Racing for old times sake.
DKR Winter Medley by Tetrimino
I’ll always prefer the N64 version as it’s cemented in my history, but the DS version can be found relatively cheap on Amazon UK or Amazon USA.
If you find yourself saving some good money by doing your holiday shopping online as opposed to in the real world then why not treat yourself. Works on both the DS systems of old and the 3DS’s of new.