 On the surface, Super Mario Kart sure looks like a blatant cash-in, like some Nintendo executive somewhere was like, damn it, we need more Mario games, we're in a war against Sega here, I don't care what you have to do, just make a mode 7 game with Mario characters and be done with it. And really, they could have stopped there, but thankfully they didn't. And the resulting game was the birth of a terrific series that's still going strong today, with the release of Mario Kart 8 coming on Friday the 30th here in North America. But is the series' original incarnation worth playing today? I know that sounds like a silly question, but think about how far the Mario Kart series has gone. The sheer amount of tracks, items, and gimmicks, it's always a little tough to leave behind all the enhancements you've grown used to as you travel back to the past. But the original Mario Kart doesn't need all that stuff, it has a certain simplicity to it that's almost beautiful in a way. It reminds me of Mike Tyson's punch-out for the NES, just such a deceptively simple game that's overflowing with charisma and charm, and the game's core mechanics make the game just effortless to play. That literally anybody could play this game and have a good time, my freaking mom could play this game, I'm on, and have a blast doing it. And of course, when I talk about playing this game, I'm not just referring to the racing. There's the infamous battle mode, which has turned many, many friends into bitter enemies over the years. I remember my elementary school friends, little brother, used to hate me for beating them every time we played, to the point that he accused me of cheating, whatever kid. But again, the key here is how simple it is to pick up and play it. Hold B to accelerate, drive over a question mark to get an item, and A fires the item. Just cross your fingers and hope that whoever you hit doesn't promptly throw their controller at the TV. Now, if you've been spoiled by modern games, then the usual pitfalls of playing a classic game are going to come into play. Like the graphics in the artwork, for instance, they are very, very much early 90s and outdated looking, but they don't get in the way of the gameplay, and they don't hinder anything. In fact, I really like how jarring it is to get hit with an item. The whole screen seems to shake as you spin around uncontrollably. A substantial difference, though, with this game is how you obtain items. In the later games, starting with the N64 version, you run into those question cubes. But in Super Mario Kart, there's a series of question boxes that you can drive over. It makes it way easier to get items this way, which I really appreciate. It always drives me crazy in Mario Kart 7 when somebody cuts me off and steals my item, or when the boxes don't regenerate fast enough. But in Super Mario Kart, you're almost guaranteed an item every lap, since they're so easy to get, and that in turn makes the races that much more fun. Also, it's worth noting that the tracks are much shorter. There are a couple exceptions, but for the most part, every course is pretty dang short, much shorter than you'd expect from the modern games in the series, and as a result, the races are five laps instead of three, and there are five races to a circuit instead of four. There, of course, is the special cup that you eventually unlock after winning all the other circuits. Good lord, Rainbow Road still gives me nightmares. I hate Rainbow Road. But yeah, you don't need me to keep prattling along to tell you why Super Mario Kart is still a classic. It has a timeless simplicity with an innate quality that allows absolutely anyone of all ages to just pick up and play and have fun. Some of the modern Mario games can be a bit complicated, what with the drifting and the crazy tracks where you're constantly falling off, so that in turn makes the direct and modest Super Mario Kart that much more appealing today.