The Case

Maneater is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin – you’re a shark and you’re a man eater. You’ll terrorize both sea life and humans alike in its parody filled world of polluted swamps, rich people’s seafront properties, and even a chunk of the ocean itself. Does Maneater live up to the hype, or is it a Jaws: The Revenge of videogames? Keep reading to find out.

The Trial

Before we get into talking about the shark, let’s talk about the game world. Maneater is presented in the style of a reality TV show like Deadliest Catch but is an in your face parody of everything those shows try to be. At first, we found the message to be a little heavy handed but as Chris Parnell’s (Cyril from Archer and Jerry from Rick & Morty) narration continued to drop dryly sarcastic lines we warmed up to the whole thing. He has a lot of lines and they last for most of the ten to fifteen hour game but if you’re doing a lot of side objectives then you’re going to start hearing repeats.

The game world itself spans multiple regions of a section of coast that range from a polluted swamp where you can barely see twenty feet right up to luxury golf courses and a chunk of the coastal waters with quite a bit of depth. Each region is littered with sewers and underground cave areas to explore too. Navigating it all is a breeze thanks to a simple control scheme that sees your shark following wherever you point the camera. You can swim away from the camera and side to side too, as well as up and down, but it’s all linked to the camera direction so even underwater you can easily keep track of what your inputs will do.

Each area of the map has multiple objectives; there’s the main story missions, hunting, eating license plates, terrorising people, resource caches, and landmarks. Not every objective provides a tangible reward, some are just a short panning shot and more of Parnell’s wonderful snark. There are also infamy levels which you gain by fighting humans. After hurting enough humans to build a meter hunters will be dispatched to battle you. You can either evade them or engage and build your infamy. Once you reach a new level of infamy a named hunter is dispatched and taking him down will drop a new mutation for your shark.

Mutations are applied to the various body parts of your shark as well as three additional general purpose slots. You can also spend resources to upgrade mutations through five levels to increase the buffs they provide. Each mutation is part of one of three sets: Bone provides more health and damage reduction, allowing you to tank your way through most encounters. Bio-Electric allows you to shock things and turn into lightning when you evade an attack. The final set, Shadow provides you with incredible speed and the ability to heal with every bite instead of every kill. All the sets are viable to play as but the Shadow set is completely overpowered and will allow you to take on anything the game can throw at you with barely a scratch to your health bar. We used it to take on whales twice our level and hordes of sharks and we were never in danger of even being hurt. However, you are limited to the one type of shark, no playing a Hammerhead or Mako unfortunately.

Inevitably you’ll be exposed to the gloriously over the top kill animations; chomping your way up another shark from the tail, spinning an alligator, and a couple where the shark breaches the water just so it can watch the copious amounts of blood spray further. There are some less flashy, but still fun, kills to be had by tail whacking objects; anything you can bite can be held and used as a projectile. Our favourite is grabbing a turtle to knock pilots off of boats, making both easy prey. It’s also fun to just grab people and launch them into the air, you won’t see where they land but you know it’ll be funny when a random guy falls out of the sky at someone’s barbecue two states over.

Graphically the game looks great. Above the water your view stretches a good distance and the world is detailed and complex – a good thing too considering how much you’ll be leaving the water. Below the water murk limits your range of vision but cranks up the atmosphere as you’ve only got a brief sonar ping to cut through the crud and see more stuff. There’s a lot to see too; brightly lit underwater cave systems, huge pipe works, the alluring blue glow of a cracked open nuclear facility, and plenty more.

The Verdict

Maneater isn’t a gigantic game but it knows when to quit. Tripwire and Blindside push the concept about as far out as feels fun without jumping the shark. It’s a decent length but you’re not going to be making Maneater your next major RPG, you might make it a well spent weekend’s entertainment though. The controls make swimming and leaping from the water a breeze even if the lack of a lock-on function can occasionally cause you to lose a target. The narration is dry and hilarious, and the game’s structure means you’re never more than a minute or two away from munching more rich tourists or meth addled shark hunters.