14 DAY TRIAL // 
Those who have seen Jaws will never forget the ominous music and scary scenes when the shark fin approaches the screen, like inevitable doom. The 1975 cult classic directed by none other than Steven Spielberg inspired a trend that lives on to this day, perpetuated by countless documentaries, movies, novels, and games as well. While some of these prefer the scientific approach trying to present the sharks as nothing more than parts of this planet’s ecosystem, other creations take advantage of our primordial fears and cast sharks in the role of cruel and dangerous monsters.
Maneater, as its title suggests, is part of the latter, telling a revenge tale focused on nature’s greatest killing machine. It's not the first game to have the sharks as their protagonist. It continues in the footsteps of mobile games like Angry Shark or Hungry Shark Evolution, or other videogames like the troublesome Jaws: Unleashed or Depth. Moreover, it shares a similar heritage to games like Destroy All Humans!: it casts you as an alien creature, either from outer space or from the depths of the ocean, in the middle of a human-inhabited environment, tasking with you the simple purpose of destroying everything that moves.
Due to the often self-ironic and sarcastic approach, the result is usually mindless fun, which reminds you that you do not have to take everything seriously. Tripwire prefers to describe their game as an action-RPG. This classification is an overstatement since the RPG part is represented only by the development of your shark as a result of gathering XP and evolving different body parts and organs.
The story, one of the most crucial components of roleplaying games, is represented by a very thin narrative that serves only as an excuse to make your shark eat everything it meets. It all starts with a film crew putting together a documentary about the most famous shark hunter of Port Clovis, Scally Pete, but the actual star of the game is a victim of Pete, a bull shark.
Throughout Manetare, all the human characters are present just so the developers can ridicule different stereotypes ranging from the beer-loving rednecks to the real estate charlatans, from the mindless cult followers to the trendy hipsters. The main story of the game is simple and pretty straightforward, a tale of revenge with a predictable ending. A second layer of the narrative can be considered a sarcastic trail of discovery, built upon the discovery of different landmarks and completion of side quests.
During this optional endeavors, the developers ridicule several popular beliefs and urban legends, while also touching some pop culture themes. In exploring the game world you are bound to stumble upon the crocodile which was Captain Hook’s Greatest Nemesis, signs of Cthulhu cultists, but also sunken UFOs, water covered ruins of ancient civilizations or references to the most famous triangle in the world (yes, the Bermuda one).
The jokes associated with these discoveries are not fresh or actually witty, but are improved by the fact that they are is voiced by the actor Chriss Parnel, who does a tremendous job. He manages to turn the somewhat inspired one-liner witty wannabe comments into moments of amusement. Although often silly and always clichés, these are among the highlights of the cat and mouse game played by Scally Pete and our nameless bull shark anti-hero. For up to 12-14 hours each involved party considers itself to be the hunter, and evolve together, employing increasingly more drastic measure to eliminate their prey. This stubborn vendetta is the perfect excuse for our bull shark to eat and evolve. He starts from an ill-fated pup and by consuming a huge amount of chum he evolves into a mega-shark.
After the first few shy hours, when you have to avoid any risks if you want to stay alive, the end-game will see you as a real killing machine who can eat entire sperm whales in just a few bites. You will work your way up the food chain from eating turtles and catfish to ruthlessly munching on hammerhead sharks and even orcas. Of course, the favorite dessert of our fearless predator remains human beings, which you will also consume copious amounts of.
The direct result of this endless feeding frenzy is the automatic level up of our shark. With each level, he becomes bigger, stronger, and faster. By completing different main or secondary objectives, you also gain access to several body part mutations and can develop new organs. These can be upgrades by gathering and investing various amounts of the game’s four resources: proteins, fats, minerals, and Mutagen X. Some organs will help you digest more efficiently these resources, make you swim faster, or make you more resilient to damage.
The body parts split into three sets can increase your defensive or offensive capabilities, or even make you poisonous. You can freely mix and match the different evolutions and mutations creating a bull shark best fitted to your playstyle. Although at first glance you might think there are a lot of customization options, in reality, the process of pimping your shark proves to be limited. Just as is the case with the variety of prey and other predators, mission requirements, and collectibles. Actually, Maneater is quite repetitive and narrow in scope, having no replay value whatsoever.
The main attraction of the game should have been the fights with other predators and shark hunters. The developers managed to include quite a few spectacular moves in the limited arsenal of attacks. Unfortunately, the imprecise controls and the lack of a lock-on function take away a lot from the fun of combat. The execution of the spectacular moves is up to chance, your most efficient way to eliminate your adversaries is to get as close as possible to them and chew them to death. It is a shame really because jumping out of the water to bite a crocodile in half is exciting.
The struggle against human opponents, even after it escalates with the increase of your notoriety, remains underwhelming as well. You go from fighting hillbillies equipped with harpoon guns riding jet skis, to fending of divers and taking down speedboats, yachts, and fishing boats. Although the arsenal of the hunters gets more lethal with the involvement of dynamite, automatic rifles, shark shields, and even torpedoes, the behavior of the AI remains as primitive as in the beginning. Equipping yourself with the Bone Set turns you into an almost unbeatable force of nature, and these encounters into prolonged child’s play. The imprecise control will be your biggest challenge, not the AI when it comes to fights both in and outside the water.
Maneater is plagued by a lot of technical issues, not just the controls. Even after several patches, the game may fail incorrectly registering the completion of different secondary objectives, making it impossible to obtain various upgrades. Some fish banks or targeted prey necessary to complete missions may fail to appear in the specified spot on the map, while sometimes you may also fall through the bottom of the seafloor, which also sometimes tends to get rendered as see-through, making the navigation impossible. It feels that the game was released in a more or less beta stage, the developers hoping to fix it after the release.
The Good
- Mindless fun
- Brilliant voice acting
The Bad
- Imprecise control scheme
- Repetitive tasks
- Poor AI
Conclusion
Unfortunately, the countless technical issues, the lack of quality content, the clumsy controls and stupid AI turn Maneater into a mediocre experience, which cannot be recommended in its current state.
