Super Mario Kart (SNES) is out now for the Wii U Virtual Console for 5.49.

Reviews are not objective. So let's get this out of the way. This is a personal opinion, but I do not think 'Super Mario Kart' is one of the best video games ever made.

I think it is the best game ever made.

Now, there are lots of great video games and for lots of different reasons. Some games are classics because they contain a single genius idea which pops out of nowhere and hooks in your brain like a virus. (Tetris, for instance.) Other games achieve greatness through generating atmosphere (Doom) or emotional resonance (The Last Of Us), or by making you rethink how the world inside and outside your computer fits together (SimCity, or Minecraft).

Super Mario Kart doesn't rely on any of those. At its heart, it is a simplistic racing game, with cute characters, and weapons, and a relatively shallow difficulty curve which punishes mistakes with the cruelty of an irrational deity, and rarely rewards genuine skill except in multiplayer. That's it. On paper, it shouldn't have worked.

But it did. Because Super Mario Kart had a Red Shell of its own: tuning.

Super Mario Kart is tuned like a Stradivarius before opening night at the Albert Hall.

You can feel the nuance, and balance, and thought, in every nanosecond of gameplay. This video game was made by a genius.

It's in the way your acceleration builds, quickly at first, then slowly, slowly, all through the race, to a crescendo of momentum, and how each touch on the brakes feels like a failure. It is contained in how the powerslides provide just enough give to stay on course even on the harshest corners, and in the perfect balance of the weapon and items, the sudden shock of the speed arrows and the juddering thump of a mistimed slam into the walls. It's in the game's famed ability to keep you in the race even when you're in eight place on the final lap, and the almost coma-inducingly perfect way the camera spins around 180 degrees the instant you pass the finishing line.

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'Super Mario Kart' Wii U eShop Review: The Best Video Game Ever Made, Still, Forever