Ten years is a long time…

I worked on over 100 issues of Nintendo Official Magazine (NOM). Most of my words are gathering dust in some corner of a dusty archiving warehouse because I only kept a couple of issues I ever worked on. Stupid. Over the weekend I had a reminiscing moment, remembering this Christmas ten years ago. That was when a certain contender to the Mario Kart crown rolled up to the start line - Rare's Diddy Kong Racing.
When I started on NOM it was the first game I witnessed being 'grabbed' (the process of taking screenshots from recorded gameplay). We used to lug this enourmous monitor up to Rare HQ and record it there. The whole cover feature was done in a day - we had one shot at it. It was pressure. And you didn't mess when you got a Rare cover.
Rare was one of the highlights on the N64 era. They were the only developer who appeared to be owning the system outside Nintendo HQ in Japan. Goldeneye, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie to name a list of grade-A classics. More on those games in future posts, but for now let's talk DKR.
Classic characters from Krunch the croc (or Kremling in Donkey Kong Country if you're sad like me) to Tiptup the turtle, courses from dinosaur lands to snow-covered villages, karts, planes and hovercraft. It was the business. Let's not forget though the INFURIATING Silver Coin Challenges. Race round the tracks grabbing the eight silver coins AND finishing first. I was ready to kill after countless attempts at the later levels. It's probably on YouTube if you look hard enough.