Starring one of Nintendo's more endearing little phenoms, Diddy Kong Racing is yet another entry into the pipsqueak fantasy racer fray made ubiquitous by the Mario Kart franchise.

As kart racing games go, Diddy's DS racer is polished and competent, but not much to write home about. However, if you think of it as a thoroughly long-lasting adventure game that happens to involve racing, well, it excels in that sense -- but only if you're the sort to enjoy mandatory quests and collectables to unlock basic in-game things like the next track (or, sometimes, the same track with new objectives) or a kart upgrades.

Because there's nothing original in chortling fathead characters zipping around on itty-bitty go-karts (or go-planes, sometimes) -- indeed, this one's basically a revamp of Diddy racing released on the N64 10-years ago --, Diddy Kong Racing DS throws in some token freshness with "touching is good" elements that have you popping balloons and collecting coins with the DS stylus (or blowing out torches by blowing on the DS microphone) before you can move on and ultimately defeat a giant evil pig... by racing, which makes as much sense as Bill & Ted vanquishing Death in a game of Twister. Said ultimate defeat, however, is not really about racing at all, more about plotting a course on a map and hoping your driver follows it while you go through the motions of spinning your wheels with the stylus (literally).

All told, Diddy Kong Racing DS strays a little far from pipsqueak racing conventions, tries a little too hard to be novel when it could have just been a retro rebirth or a nice variation on a go-kart theme.

Still, if you love your DS for its well-established interfacing oddities -- blowing and poking, for example -- then Diddy brings a new batch of blow-me tasks and poke-you challenges that happen to involve racing with pipsqueak chortling fatheads in itty-bitty go-karts.

Redeeming itself somewhat, the game also supports unadulterated multiplayer kart racing for up to eight DS owners and only one copy of the game, so maybe let your buddy buck up and buy the game and then freeload some gametime off that.