at GameRankings based on 42 reviews and a score of 63 at Metacritic, based on 39 reviews. Diddy Kong Racing sold approximately 4.5 million copies worldwide; which included 3.78 million copies sold in the United States and PAL regions, and 653,928 copies in Japan. At the 1999 Milia festival in Cannes, it took home a "Gold" prize for revenues above €15 million in the European Union during the previous year. It stands as the Nintendo 64's eighth best-selling game, and broke one million units sold in the United States within three weeks of its release. The graphics and gameplay were the most praised aspects of the game. Some critics noted how it minimised pop-up without resorting to the use of distance fog. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot disputed this, saying that the game has both pop-up and distance fog in amounts comparable to the average Nintendo 64 game. He nonetheless stated that the game was a "pleasure to look at" and praised the detail of the tracks. Doug Perry of IGN heralded the visuals as the most "spectacular of its kind", and praised Rare's ability to master dynamic animation through enabling polygons to span larger surfaces without loss of framerate. Furthermore, Perry stated that the game's technical achievements were enough to leave "even the most critical Japanese gamer [to] look upon with smiling eyes". Although Crispin Boyer opened his review of the game for Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) with the warning "Don't dismiss this out-of-the-blue racer as a Mario Kart 64 clone", most reviews compared the two games. Gerstmann suspected Nintendo of rushing Diddy Kong Racing to market in order to fill a quarter left vacant by delays of other Nintendo games, and argued it was much too soon after Mario Kart 64s debut to release such a similar game. Other critics, including Boyer's EGM co-reviewers, focused on Diddy Kong Racings perceived superiority to Mario Kart 64. Dan Hsu of EGM said it "beats Mario Kart 64 in every department", particularly mentioning the superior balance and level designs. Edge praised the adventure and progression aspect of the game, stating that the game's single-player mode is "everything Mario Kart 64 should have been." The character designs met with a variety of opinions. EGMs Shawn Smith praised the characters as "hilarious". Next Generation, by contrast, said the character designs are "pathetic and obvious, molded from the same cookie cutter as Banjo-Kazooie and Conker",