There’s a certain allure to sharks, but along with that comes a fear that was bolstered by films like Jaws. Always the antagonist in games, there hasn’t quite been a game that properly put you in the role of the shark since 2006’s Jaws Unleashed and Maneater is here to change that.
Maneater
Developer: Tripwire Interactive
Price: $40
Platform: PC, PS4 and Xbox One
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Taking place in the city of Port Clovis, Maneater sets its world up from two perspectives. On one side you’re following the reality TV series “Maneaters vs. Sharkhunters” as they follow infamous hunter Scaly Pete as he hunts for you. The other side of things is a revenge tale where you, starting as a cute baby shark, have your mother killed by Scaly Pete and proceed to go on a one-shark crusade against him and all humankind. Both halves of this story, I cannot stress enough, are fucking stupid and they work incredibly well in the world Maneater has set up for itself. Scaly Pete alone is easily one of the best villainous characters in recent memory, as the man has a comically irrational hatred of sharks to the point of wanting to personally genocide them. Adding to this is the delightful voice of Chris Parnell who narrates the entire thing with a very knowing wink as he chimes in with shark facts.
As fun as this game’s setup is, I do wish it leaned into it a bit harder. The game severely needs more Scaly Pete in it to the point where I can’t imagine a sequel without him; bring him back as a cyborg I don’t care. The game has clear absurd elements to it, like finding totems to elder gods hidden in the ocean, but never really does anything with it. Hell, Scaly Pete is almost constantly referencing a giant megalodon (that isn’t you), almost implying you’ll get to see and tussle with this creature but nothing ever comes of it. There’s real potential for something a bit sillier here and wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel take an almost Fast Five style approach to ramp things up.
Maneater is an RPG where you control a shark, a ShaRkPG if you please, and as absurd as that concept sounds it absolutely works. First off, the shark feels phenomenal to control. Everything from fighting underwater to knifing along the surface feels smooth and most importantly, fun. Now like any proper RPG, you don’t kick the game off all badass, you got to work your way up there. Starting off as a little pup of a shark, you’ll slowly increase in size as you eat your way up the food chain until you become this monstrously large shark that’ll be slapping any other fish in the sea silly. This is where the “RPG” elements come in. You’ll earn XP from completing missions, finding collectibles, or just eating other fish and your shark will increase in strength with each level; along with that you’ll mature to the next stage of adulthood, growing in size, when you hit specific level tiers. It’s an RPG but distilled down to its most basic form. Along with that, you’ll be able to equip three abilities that do things like increasing your sonar radius to giving stat boosts. You’ll also be able to equip your shark with various elemental upgrades on each limb that turns your shark from a basic brute to a hellish nightmare spawn. And that’s it; no skill tree or abilities to earn which is fine since this game doesn’t need all that but the entire experience does give the feeling like this could be a testbed for a more expanded upon sequel.
Now it wouldn’t be a shark game without getting to get into some scraps with other fish. Maneater features a pretty basic combat system wherein you simply bite and tail whip other fish or humans to death. You can probably get through the game like that just fine, but there’s just the slightest bit of depth to play with if you want to.
When tussling with another fish you’re able to play the Assassin’s Creed approach of waiting to dodge an attack and following up with a flurry of bites while they’re vulnerable. You’ll repeat this pattern from the gators in the bayou all the way to the sperm whales in the gulf, so that’s where the other elements of the combat add a bit more to it. A strategy I quickly took to was finding a weaker fish, holding unto them, and proceeding to tail whip that sucker into whatever other fish I was fighting. Doing the same with the humans you battle, especially when they start tossing TNT you can throw back at them is fucking stupid and they always managed to put a grin on my face.
As previously mentioned, you can equip different types of elemental armor pieces onto your shark’s limbs that drastically alter her appearance. They also change the way you play with each armor type offering a different ability such as the bone armor that turned your shark into an explosive tank. The fun part is mix and matching these pieces to find a combination that works best for you; I was particularly fond of the bioluminescent fin that takes your simple dodge maneuver, turning it into an electrical teleport that stuns everyone and pairing it with the shadow set that added a projectile poison dart to your tail whips. Now while these additions aren’t perhaps the most dramatic mechanical changes to the combat, as the core gist remains the same, they’re just really fun and adds to Maneater’s violent spectacle.
What’s probably my favorite aspect of the combat is how visceral it all is. Your shark’s bite has a disgustingly gritty crunch to it and the way the top of the ocean fills with red as your shred people apart inspires a childish glee. The animation plays a big part in this as well as you toss humans up into the air before swallowing them, or giving a hammerhead a fun spin before the final bite. On top of that, you’ll see some pretty brutal battle damage on enemy marine life during battles. At one point when tussling with a gator I had severed all of its legs and it became this sort of pathetic stump still attempting to lunge at me before I finally finished it off. It’s all incredibly morbid at times, but it’s so over the top you can’t help but laugh.
The world of Port Clovis is surprisingly varied; as you work your way unlocking each zone in the map you’ll go from a bayou swamp to a golf course that’s built across various islands.
The game’s loop itself is fairly formulaic. Each of the eight zones has the exact same missions to perform before you move on to the next: hunt down a bunch of the same type of fish three times (like “kill 10 seals 3 times), take out an enemy boat, kill the apex predator that appears, and then checking in on your good pal Scaly Pete to progress the plot. It’s those same few objectives in each zone to move the plot forward and if you focus on specifically that stuff, you could honestly probably finish the game in maybe six or so hours. Now there’s definitely some side stuff to do, but it’s not much. Besides the main objectives each area also has a litany of collectibles to find, target hunts where you have to kill a stronger version of a particular fish or boat, and a general “eat humans” mission.
Just having those same missions in each zone with absolutely nothing new to shake them up would normally be a huge knock against a game for me, but I just loved swimming around as this big dumb shark so much I didn’t mind it one bit. I was up till three in the morning after playing for five hours straight one night just hitting each zone swimming for collectibles, hunting, and just causing some general chaos. Obviously some people might not feel the same way as I did, but for me getting to swim around as an electrical shark tail whipping people into the stratosphere just never got old.
The only major bummer for me was how short the overall game was. I had every area (besides one I believe) at 90% competition and hit credits at just shy of 9 hours; if I bothered to get a total 100% completion it’d maybe take me another hour or so to do so. The game doesn’t have the usual premium asking price which is nice, but I would’ve loved to have been able to spend more time in this world.
The Final Word
What Maneater lacks in variety, it more than makes up for in pure unbridled, delicious carnage.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
