Released back in 1992, SMK is still one of the greatest fun racers out there due to its fantastic multiplayer modes!
After playing through the awesome single player mode, a friend of mine and I played the game's battle mode, where you have three balloons (=lives) attached to your kart and you have to take away your opponents balloons by shooting or letting him/her slip on banana peels etc. which sounds like a pretty simple game mode, and it actually is, but it just works great and you can spend hours and hours on the different levels of that mode without it ever getting boring.
I'd say we played that mode for one year on a regular basis before we both went different paths, but soon after, I had another friend of mine playing it with me together but this time, we were just playing the multiplayer "Grand Prix" mode of the game, and man, how we played it... hour after hour, week after week, year after year... Of course we soon became proficient in that game (even to the extent of shrinking our characters before the race - every SMK veteran probably knows what I'm talking about - and waiting at the starting line until we got lapped by the AI controlled characters and still managed to finish in first and second place most of the time).
I think what made us so addicted to game was the fact that the game was just perfectly balanced and playable (even though we were swearing like crazy as the game can feel unfair if you haven't mastered it yet, for example racers you are trying to lap won't normally just let you pass like they should but will try to block you or even check you into the void or lava etc. and that's only the beginning).
On the other hand, I guess the term "schadenfreude" would have had to be invented just for this game if it wouldn't already exist. there's nothing more rewarding than seeing your friend fall into the void or being hit by a red koopa shell after a hard fight in the final lap. And that's also where the unfairness I had mentioned in the previous paragraph comes in. In the single player mode it is just annoying if you get owned by the AI, but in multiplayer, it's the best fun you can imagine (and of course, if you're the victim, your friend is going to pay for it in the next race).
I have never found myself laughing more hysterically over and over again than in this game, and that's why it is a perfect 10 for me.
To conclude, I can only say that this is a game that gave me a youth full of joy (okay, there are other joyful things to do in your youth, but you get my point) and as I mentioned before, it is just perfectly balanced not like the newer iterations of it (blue shell anyone??). The only other Mario Kart I played nearly as much as this one (although I own them all) was "Mario Kart: Super Circuit" on the GBA, but this one here, Super Mario Kart, is the original and it is a classic which in my opinion is on the same level with other legendary SNES games such as "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past", "Yoshi's Island" or "Super Metroid". While these games have their awesome levels or dungeons, Super Mario Kart has its legendary set of racing tracks (I think everyone who reads this can still remember Rainbow Road and its tune) and it's just an amazing package Nintendo released back in 1992. Thank you, Big N!