As for TSL: Good concept, incomplete game, lackadaisical execution, rushed ending. I don't understand all the hate, some of it maybe, but not all. And I didn't like how it made Revan out to have been a god more or less. It is not the worst I have seen, though.
BTW, don't knock SMB. It's one of the better games for the NES and most games for that era had similar endings.
Twisted Metal 3. Hard game, for a reward that wasn't quite worth it. All the endings were suck-ish. Understandably it's about dark humor: that's kind of the point to the storylines of EVERY TM. Unfortunately in TM3, EVERY stinkin' ending made a *mockery* of whatever character you chose. There is no irony, and the absurdity is overblown like a really bad fairytale. It isn't really as funny as its predecessors. Who the **** wrote this game's storylines for the characters anyways? It has about 14 different endings. Some are sort of funny but the rest just suck.
So far as a game:
They also took away innocent bystander pedestrians running around in the stages for you to kill--the very thing that made TM so controversial, the thing that made it stand out in the first place during the PS1 32-bit era. And don't even get me started on the irritating little inconsistencies 989 studios introduced in TM3, which were only further exacerbated in TM4. TM4 was an improvement mind you, but by this point, to hell with any storyline.
TM3 was a game that is a hard fight and I suppose it was sort of fun if you stuck with it and you unlocked everything. Certainly the character Auger was badass. Most people just couldn't stomach how SLOW this game was and I can't blame them. Something about data per second or frames per second being too much for the game engine to process. I don't know. Would have been nice if they'd have done more beta testing before selling it.
Before the heyday of Grand Theft Auto, Twisted Metal was the game to have for carnage, crime and blood. Sure early GTA games were around but are not well known because they didn't quite have the impact TM did. I think GTA3 era games took a page from the Twisted Metal games, just my opinion.
This game was kind of disgraceful to the TM series as a whole. TM deserved better, and this is probably a good bit of the reason the original crew decided to start anew and make Twisted Metal Black instead of making a 5th installment. Developer 989 studios MESSED it up. They may have made great sports games, and their idea for the "tru-physics" engine was an innovative one, BUT poorly executed. They should have stuck with sports.
In retrospect, save that I wish the newer Twisted Metal games would have at least kept Auger (because there is nothing quite like shredding your opponents to death with a giant drill!), Sony probably should have just stuck with the original TM team. Of course one would then have to question if TMB would have been so good if the 2 games before it weren't mediocre to sucky-suck. Guess it's averaging and you need valleys in order to appreciate the peaks. At least they had the sense to return to the original producer team because they made the good stuff, (and still are making good stuff).
rant over
TL;DR: I suppose TM3 as a game has its place and perhaps had good ideas, but it came up lacking in execution overall and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to play it.