Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2

Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 (ドリラーエンジングランドプリー２ｘ２) (pronounced two by two) is a 2003 go-kart racing game developed by Drillimation Studios and published by Namco. It is the fourth game in the Driller Engine Grand Prix series of kart-racing games, and is the only title to have a mathematical problem in the title instead of a numeral. The game was released in the arcades in June 2003 followed by a release on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and home computers in November 2003. An enhanced, high definition remake was released on iOS, Android, and the Hycintho Sea in November 2015. The arcade version is also included in the 2016 compilation of Namco Museum: Drillimation Replay.

The game is primarily based on Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, but with the characters and tracks being from The Drillimation Series. Characters from the Super Mario universe also appear as guest characters on the Nintendo GameCube version. Although the game can be played with four players, every copy of the PlayStation 2 version of the game came packaged with the Multitap due to controller limitations. The game requires 8 blocks on the Nintendo GameCube and Xbox versions or 64KB/MB on the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows to save data.

Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 became a critical and financial success in Drillimation's history, receiving universal acclaim and being regarded as one of the best video games of all time by numerous video game magazines. It broke numerous sales records when its home console port was released, grossing over $1 billion in the first three weeks of its release. The game received numerous game of the year awards and won the Game of the Year Award for Best Racing Game.

Microsoft Windows

 * Operating System: Windows 98 or higher
 * Hard Disk Space: 64MB
 * Video Card: DirectX 8 required to display 3D graphics
 * Sound Card: DirectSound (Windows XP required to play double-channel sound)
 * RAM: 4MB or higher
 * Resolution: 640x480 or higher

Mac OS

 * Operating System: Mac OS 9 or higher
 * Hard Disk Space: 64MB
 * Video Card: DirectX 8 required to display 3D graphics
 * Sound Card: DirectSound (Mac OS X 10.0 required to play double-channel sound)
 * RAM: 4MB or higher
 * Resolution: 640x480 or higher

Blurb
"Double the fun - no quarters required!"

- Official attention grabber for the home console and PC versions Take all the crazy actions the popular arcade game series has made, and multiply it by two! Welcome to the Double Dash Classic - a tournament that holds two switchable racers on one kart. Select your pair from a huge cast of heroes and villains from the popular animated Drillimation series and see how they fit!


 * It's either friends or foes. Make the experience like the arcade in Co-op Mode with new features such as item stealing and slide attacking.
 * All characters now get a more powerful, special item like a gigantic banana and the classic red shells and mushrooms.
 * Race your pals or duke it out in over 25 tracks and three new battle modes.
 * Get online via Drillimation Online! Link your PlayStation 2/Xbox/Nintendo GameCube to the internet for wild online races and battles!

Gameplay
Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 puts players in control of a driver, who drives the kart, and a co-driver, who uses all items and has one character item. There are tournaments which players must race a series of races and win with the most points. The karts have three stats: acceleration, speed, and weight (if chosen as the driver). If co-driver, they have one special item that can fall into one four categories: Shield, Attack, Boost, and Flight.

Every race is timed with three laps, and if the player does not complete a lap within the time limit, the race is lost. Every time a lap is completed, the player is awarded a time extension, allowing more time for the player to complete a lap.

At the end of the Driller Engine Grand Prix mode, there is a special part called Lucky Channel, similar to the one from Magical Girl Team Lucky Star. In this segment, both Akira and Minoru interview both winners of the grand prix, asking both of them a question about the race.

Plot
The game is introduced by a narrator (voiced by Susumu Takajima) who talks about the Double Dash Classic tournament and how the tournament is played out. During the narration, the scene depicts Kowars being hit by a spiny shell as soon as he's about to cross the finish line.

Meanwhile at Ryou Gakuen High School of Magic and Drilling in Kasukabe, Saitama, the school begins to lose popularity due to the other schools in Kasukabe taking the lead, and Konata tries to come up with an idea to find a way to increase popularity. Learning that the Driller Engine Grand Prix tournament is popular, she has the school host one in order to attract more. Konata then visits the Drill Institute in Edogawa, Tokyo to speak with Dr. Zett in hosting a Driller Engine Grand Prix in order to increase popularity at the school. The Drill Institute sends letters to everyone across Japan to join the Driller Engine Grand Prix, it even lands in the hands of Susumu Hori and two admins of the now-defunct Team Ankoku hacktivist group, being Keel Sark and Eguri Hatakeyama.

Meanwhile, while the three Team Ankoku admins are planning another cyber attack, Keel announces that he and Eguri have been invited, and Kowars comes up with an idea to sabotage the tournament, thus having Keel create a powerful item from Golden Dristone technology, making the Super Mecha Death Drill. When all the other entrants find out about Team Ankoku spoiling the tournament with their newly-developed shell, they fight back by making their own special items.

Characters
Key:
 * Lightweight characters provide great acceleration but a low top speed.
 * Middleweight characters provide normal acceleration and speed.
 * Heavyweight characters provide slow acceleration but great speed.

Console Exclusive Teams
These teams are exclusive to their respective consoles. They can be enabled in the PC version of the game with a legitimate mod. The first team is unlocked by completing all cups on Easy, and the other is unlocked by completing all cups on Normal.

GameCube exclusive teams:
 * Mario and Luigi
 * Peach and Toad

Xbox exclusive teams:
 * Banjo and Kazooie
 * Conker and Berri

PlayStation 2 exclusive teams:
 * Ratchet and Clank
 * Crash Bandicoot and Coco Bandicoot

DLC Teams
These teams are available for download on the iOS, Android, and Hyacintho versions of the game. They include:

Rival Characters
In arcade mode, the player has two other characters for their rivals. Each character has two rival characters:

Arcade/Grand Prix
In the arcade mode, the player must race against eleven other karts. The speed of the karts vary depending on the difficulty:
 * Easy/50cc: All karts have a low top speed that reaches up to 50 mph/100 km/h and will rarely shoot red shells and spiny shells. Any kart can take the top positions.
 * Normal/100cc: All karts have a fairly average top speed that reaches up to 55 mph/110 km/h and red shells are more common. Racers will rarely shoot spiny shells. Usually the middleweight/heavyweight and/or the player's rival karts take the top positions.
 * Difficult/150cc: All karts have a high top speed that can reach up to 60 mph/120 km/h, and red shells and spiny shells are common. All characters race in mixed teams. Usually the heavyweight karts take the top positions.
 * Insane/200cc: All karts, including the player, have a high top speed that can reach up to 65 mph/130 km/h. Like Difficult, all characters race in mixed teams and the heavyweight karts usually take the top positions.

Time Trial
In time trial mode, item boxes are absent as the player races themself against the clock. The only items the player is given is one mushroom for each character. The engine the player uses is a 150cc engine.

Dream Grand Prix
Same as arcade, but allows the player to set their own rules. This mode is only available on the PC and home console versions.

Battle
Introduced in the November 2003 update, this is a traditional mode that has presented throughout all Driller Engine Grand Prix games. Two to four players can compete against themselves using a variety of items (including all the special items) on the new battle arenas found in the game. Unlike Driller Engine Grand Prix 2 and Driller Engine Grand Prix 3, the players no longer transform into Mini Bomb Karts and/or Bob-ombs after being taken out, and instead just explode.

Battle Stages

 * Cookie Land
 * Miki's Cityscape
 * Nintendo GameCube (GCN Only)
 * PlayStation 2 (PS2 Only)
 * Xbox (Xbox Only)
 * Bliss (PC Only)
 * Mac OS 9 (Mac Only)
 * Drill Town
 * Scarlet Devil Mansion (unlockable by completing Keyboard Cup on Difficult/150cc)
 * Tilt-a-Kart (unlockable by completing Drill Cup on Lunatic/200cc)

Items
Items are classified in five forms:
 * Blue Item Box: The co-driver gets an item.
 * Double Blue Item Box: Both drivers get items.
 * Green Item Box: The co-driver gets three of the same item.
 * Double Blue/Green Item Box: One character gets one item while the other gets three of the same item.
 * Double Green Item Box: Both drivers get three of the same item.

Character-Exclusive Items
Harold Slikk and Fegelein, as well as Lord Brinks, Fred Fuchs, Susumu Takajima, and Megumi Wakui can obtain any special item listed above.

Gallery
The home console and Windows versions have four anime clips for each anime. They can be unlocked by completing each cup with the clip you want to unlock.

Cast
''This list is incomplete. If you know the actor/actresses to some of the characters mentioned, add them.''

Development
Development for Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 started after the release of Driller Engine Grand Prix 3 in late 2001 as Driller Engine Grand Prix 4. A 15-second trailer for the game was unveiled on the Drillimation website in December 2001 showing Susumu and Wataru driving a basic, blue kart in single-person mode before the game was upgraded to two-person mode. Their models from Super Smash Keyboards 4 were used in the trailer and the gameplay used lacked a sky and a textured floor.

In May 2002, Drillimation announced that Driller Engine Grand Prix 4 began development. However, the team was having a difficult time trying to conceive gameplay that Drillimation fans would enjoy. Kenjirou Nasaya, one of the lead programmers, wanted to make the game enjoyable for children who never played Driller Engine Grand Prix before. To do this, he decided to make the game simplistic as possible. Susumu Takajima, the game's director, was also the game's producer, and he asked Drillimation programmers to implement features that were never seen from previous titles. The game was going to be ported to the Game Boy Advance and allow GameCube connectivity, but that concept was scrapped due to the Game Boy Advance's hardware limitations, as well as Sony and Microsoft not competing in the handheld market.

In January 2003, the game was renamed to its present name, Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2, and implemented the driver and co-driver mechanic. The first screenshots of the game were also shown on the Drillimation website. The character mugshots were different from the final game, the lap counter below the time was missing, and the HUD was different.

A number of courses were different before the final game:
 * In Konata Beach, a Dasani advertisement was displayed, but was removed because Drillimation was denied the rights to use Dasani's logo. The pipe was also going to be an opening blocked by planks of wood. The course logo was different before the final game.
 * In Wataru Circuit, there were more sunflowers and larger mountains. The blimp from the final game was also absent too. Like Konata Beach, the course logo was different as well.
 * Taizo Mountain was going to be part of the Keyboard Cup, but ended up in the Nerd Cup in the final version. Whenever the player got shot out of the cannon, the speedometer peaked to 320 mph, rather than the standard 200 mph in the final game.
 * In Gangster Stadium, there were different ads promoting other Drillimation games, but was replaced with an alternating Namco and the console manufacturer's logo. The fireballs were smaller too.
 * Takanomiya Park originally started off as a circuit course named Kagami Circuit. However, the developers wanted it to be based on both Kagami and Tsukasa, and the name was changed to its present name, with the signature course for Kagami getting Kagami Bridge instead. The other circuit course planned ended up becoming James Circuit.

In April 2003, another gameplay trailer was shown with Taizo Mountain and Wataru Circuit, as well as a playable Windows demo. The course intro also had a different HUD, the blimp's logo was different, and the mountains from the final game were missing. The transition from the course intro and gameplay was just a cut instead of a flag pattern. The countdown was also different. The top speed was also around 80 mph rather than the standard 60 mph the game uses.

A month later, in May 2003, Drillimation released some updates to the game saying that the game is capable of having 24 players race via Drillimation Online on all of the platforms the game was being released on, introducing character items such as the Hiiragi Shell and Barrage Drill, and even sped up the game. The battle mode was also being introduced, but would not be seen until the November 2003 update.

In June 2003, about one month before the arcade release, the game was sped up again and those who said that Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 was going to be the worst ended up being the best. A month later, in July 2003, the game was released in the arcades. The game was instantly a smash hit, and more than 1.5 million machines were sold globally. Around hundreds of Chuck E. Cheese's locations across the United States had a Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2 machine.

In late October 2003, advertisements for the home console version of the game started popping up, and animated commercials for the game were shown on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and almost all the Saturday morning blocks for local channels. Around two weeks before the home console release, Weird Kid Cartoons sent a cease and desist letter to Drillimation Studios regarding the use of zoomaway.wav. Drillimation Studios apologized to Weird Kid Cartoons, and created a new version using sound effects from the game.

The game was released for the home consoles in November 2003. A large deal with the toy company Hot Wheels caused nearly 100,000 Hot Wheels cars to have special labels promoting the game. The two companies also held a sweepstakes where one family of four could win a 15-inch television with either their choice of a PlayStation 2, Xbox, or Nintendo GameCube with four controllers and a copy of the game.

Reception
While the arcade version of the game was expensive for its time, the PS2, GCN, Windows, and Xbox versions of the game were largely successful. The game received universal acclaim from critics and Famitsu scored the game a perfect score of 40. The game was ranked #1 on Drillimation's best selling game list, breaking the record of Mr. Driller with a total of 17.9 million copies sold on all three platforms in the first three weeks of its release. The game sold over 4 million copies in its first week of its release in Japan, which did over $200 million. The game earned an additional $800 million in worldwide sales during Black Friday sales. Metacritic also stated that "the sound bites are fun at first, but some of the character's voices can get annoying really fast".

In 2004, the game won the Game of the Year award for Best Racing Game. After its winning, Drillimation released a Game of the Year version exclusively for Windows and Macintosh computers along with a special figurine of Susumu and Anna in the Drill Master.