Granny Vinnie Reviews

7800 Rank: 30th Genre Rank: (Sports) 5th Awards: 9th Best Gameplay, 7th Worst Originality Nice Shirt, Jerky! Pros: Excellent Gameplay/ Nice Course Cons: Tends to get boring on the back 9 You Gotta Get it There, Alice!

Overview: Here you have a golf game...plain and simple. No sponsors, no likeness on the box, no world famous name...just a lot of green, and supposedly a lot of mean. The name of this 7800 title always cracked me up. Though Mean 18 Ultimate Golf is a decent golf simulation for its time, there is nothing very mean or ultimate about it. But, half of the title is correct, there are 18 holes of GOLF here.

Graphics: The biggest flaw in the graphics department is the jabroni swingin' the club. Pink shirt, light blue pants, and a face that only Louie from Scrap Yard Dog could love. Though our generic golfer looks like a loser, I would kill for this guy's swing. Golfing animation here is pretty good. Though the golfer gets a mixed score on looks, the main concern should be and is whether or not the course looks and plays like a legitimate golf course, and the good news is yes. The 18 holes are all varied in length and design. An added plus is the cool sign of that particular hole you get to check out before teeing off. Overall, the graphics of Mean 18 are very good.

Sound: Obviously, we wouldn't want thumping dances track while we are trying to putt in a 25 foot birdie, but again an Atari game fails to offer super audio to a game. The swing has a nice "SCHHEEWOCK" sound, but other than that and the sound of the ball landing in the cup, there's not much here.

Gameplay: This, like the graphics, will receive a mixed score. Parts of Mean 18's gameplay is superb. You click a button to start your swing back, and as it goes, a meter at the left rises. You click the button again to stop for the distance you want, and then follow through begins. You hit the button a third time to hit the ball appropriately. If you are early, the ball will hook, and if you are late, the ball will slice. Pretty cool stuff, and it works well. At your disposal you have a complete set of clubs, and all of those seem to have the appropriate distances and lofts in tact. The drawback is where putting comes in. Although not terrible, putting sometimes just gets wiggy. For some strange reason on random short putts, the golfer will be standing at a 90-degree angle to the hole! You have to loop these in, which is normally easy, but wacky all of the same.

Originality: Sadly, this game is just a little plain all of the way around. Nothing really makes it stand out, and there are probably 1000 golf games that are more fun than this one because of the lack of bells and whistles in this cart.

Value: They weren't joking when they called this game Mean 18. You only have 1 course to play on, or to break it down for all the unhip kids...18 holes. After a few plays, this will probably get really boring to the casual video game golf fan. A tournament, season, money lists or even the ability to pick your guy's shirt would have lengthened this golf game's life-span. This is a shame cause it's not a bad golf engine.

Overall: Mean 18 Ultimate Golf feels like you just bought a stripped down car. It will get you to where you want to go, but it's not flashy. If you really love golf, or golf video games, this game will please you with its decent graphics, smooth gameplay and it's singular nifty course. But sadly, if you are a Tiger Woods generation golf fan, the lack of rock-n-roll will bore you to tears.



Other Reviews
CV's Atari 7800 Panoramic Froo-Froo: 3.0 out of 5.0 (Fair)


Additional Info: I would like to take this time to thank Mitch Orman, owner of The Atari 7800 Page for allowing the use of his screenshots for this review.

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