The 3D levels are rife with bottomless pits, requiring the player to be extremely careful in every step he takes lest he go slipping to his death at any moment. This is not how a game about speed should be constructed.

And the speed you do build up only occurs by running over "speed pads" that send you through scripted events that attempt to capture the exhilaration of the 2D games. The only problem with this is that the speed in those games was entirely a product of physics, in that you'd build momentum naturally as you ran down slopes and through loops and so forth, which was much more satisfying than just having the game arbitrarily say, "Okay now go fast here."