While Super Mario Kart was an interesting stab at 3D racing, it failed to stimulate my satisfaction levels.
First of all, just because it was in 3D doesn't mean that it was a masterpiece or it was the best game to ever dawn the earth. In fact, 3D doesn't even make a game good, it only makes it new. This game decided to take a stab at it, and they thought that racing in 3D could be the new "thing" for Nintendo. But to me? To my friends and acquaintances? No. It was awful, it was disastrous, and it was highly overrated. The people you will find today that say that this was a good game are either diehard Mario fans, complete Kart racing junkies, or people that like any game, no matter how bad or good it is. I'm not one of those people. This game made 3D look not only bad, but they tried to abuse that quality to fake their way into the high ranks of games. The 3D attribute was nothing but a trick to make the game look a little better than it was.
Now then, the actual racing. I have a lot of bad memories of how this game was played out. I remember crashing into barrels and walls a lot, I remember sliding in sand and grass as it slowed me down, and I even remember coming in first only when I played with a friend who sabotaged all the other AIs. Yes, I'm saying this game was hard. I couldn't do any swerving, even if there was any, which I doubt. I couldn't hit the people in front of me because of poor quality weapons that you got in those boxes. And I could never get around any of the tracks easily. Some courses had points where if you missed pressing a button to jump at a ramp, you fell back into a leg of the course that was a long way away from where you were. Not only does that add distance between you and the leader, but it takes a toll on your time, and your placing. The racing was hard, uncontrollable (I'll get to that in a minute), it was hard to read (hard to tell where I was supposed to go thanks to lousy markers), and the AIs were either geniuses, or I was being had by the lousy game's bad parts. Most likely the latter, because Kart AIs always suck on the first level of difficulty.
Now then, control schemes. First of all, I think everyone who has ever played this game can relate with me when I say that the controls of this game were extremely slippery. I couldn't get commands through in time for certain things, turn were always hard to maneuver, and boost and item usage were lagging in reaction time as well as performance. Whenever I hit a turn I prepared for the worst. Why? Because every time I hit a turn I knew that I would go off into a wall or into the sand/grass and slow down. Why again? Because the controls either did what I wanted to much, too little, or not at all. I apologize to all you massive kart fans out there that adore every kind of racing game no matter how much it sucks, but this game is one of my least favourites. Maybe I just didn't learn the game properly, or maybe I just didn't try hard enough. Say all you want, but I don't know of anyone within my contacts that has ever liked this game out of the Mario Kart series. It just plain sucks.
Now then, onto the graphics again. This time I'll deal with the 2D stuff. This would be the markers that tell you where the jumps and track lines are. I can safely say that I COULDN'T SEE THEM. They were so small and so poorly placed and so poorly coloured that I just couldn't tell where the heck I was supposed to go or where the heck I was supposed to do. The first few times I raced, I spent over half the time trying to turn myself around because all of a sudden a little sign would come up saying I was going the wrong way. The track looked like the sand in some cases, so that didn't help my perception either. I'm serious when I say that the graphics, both 3D and 2D sucked like heck. I couldn't stand it after a while. I had never been so confused. i could better understand a dungeon in Zelda than I could understand the first race track in Super Mario Kart.
Overall, I think that this game was a poor installment in the series, and I really am quite surprised that the series managed to get this far today. I never liked that Mario Kart series much, mostly because of the poor controls that still live on, but really, this failed Mario completely. Despite the high ratings that people give this game, don't get it, don't play it, and don't ever think of it. This game was a nightmare in my gaming history, and I've been gaming since it came out. Seriously, do yourselves a favour and stay away from Super Mario Kart. I wish I could give it a zero rating. One is too high for this.