Maneater

Few movies have had more of an impact than Jaws, the 1975 Steven Spielberg classic that not only gave us the summer blockbuster season, but also turned the entire world against sharks. For whatever reason, these ocean predators haven't had the same impact on the video game scene, but perhaps all that will change with the new game Maneater. It is an ultra-violent open world action game that mixes the fun of Grand Theft Auto with the unbridled power of being a killer shark. It's a brutal and bloody combination that almost works, but is ultimately trapped by a series of repetitive and unimaginative missions.

This is a story borne out of tragedy. You play a shark whose only goal in life is to exact sweet revenge on the ruthless reality TV fisherman who killed its mother. We watch as the baby shark grows to be a terrible teen, an aggressive adult and an unstoppable elderly chomper, always with the thought of revenge front and center in its mind.

This plays out like any other open world game -- by completing missions and outrunning the cops. You may be a shark, but all the cliches apply here. We start out in the swampy bayou, but it won't take long before our sharky hero is eating humans at the swanky yacht club, the beach resort, the carnival on the pier and, well, everywhere else. There's also a bright and colorful world underneath the sea filled with sunken treasures, secret paths and all kinds of delicious fish to chow down on.

As a shark simulator, Maneater gets most of the fundamentals right. Once you get the hang of the basics, you're able to speed through the water with reckless abandon and become the underwater killing machine you've always wanted to be. And it doesn't stop there, because a lot of the game has you flopping around on dry land while eating innocent vacationers. I would say that this game knows exactly how silly it is, but I think by now that should be self-evident.

Maneater is at its best when all you're doing is exploring the large open world and taking on the secondary quests. There's something cathartic about swimming through the water knowing that you're at the top of the food chain. And even when you get into a fight with a hammerhead shark, crocodile or angry fisherman, deep down you know that our hero will live to see another day. To be that cold-blooded killing machine has always been the exciting promise of a shark game. It's like being Freddy Krueger is a Nightmare on Elm Street game or Darth Vader in the Star Wars universe. You wield the power, and everything you do only seems to make the shark stronger. This is what Maneater gets right.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things it gets wrong. The reason why I talk about the collectibles and side stuff is because the missions are pretty terrible. In fact, they aren't just bad, but also repetitive in a way that I haven't seen since the original Assassin's Creed. There are basically three types of missions that are repeated ad nauseum from beginning to end. You will need to kill a bunch of humans, eat a bunch of fish and then destroy a target, which is usually either a fishing boat or an apex predator.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but it's not. That's all you do. And you'll often go from a mission telling you to kill 10 humans to a mission telling you to kill 15 humans. There are times where I performed the same exact task three or four times in a row, only with a slight variation. And by slight I mean that you'll eat 10 catfish in one mission and then 10 parrotfish in the next. Not only are these tasks not fun, but they are also never challenging. They almost feel like after thoughts. It's as if the developers created this gorgeous open world, but couldn't figure out what you should be doing in it. The three mission types they settled on are all kind of lame.

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Sadly, that feeds into my next problem -- the AI in this game is shockingly dumb. In a world where people are sunbathing during a global pandemic, Maneater still has the most braindead beach bums of 2020. From the people playing in the sand to the swimmers in the water, nobody reacts to the shark. You have to go out of your way to kill a dozen people before the masses will scatter, and even then, they'll return after only a couple minutes. Part of the fun of being a shark is seeing everybody freak out at just the mere sight of a fin daggering out of the water. You never get that satisfying feeling from Maneater, and as simple as it sounds, it makes a difference when dealing with the yummy humans.

And then there's the humor, which is definitely making the effort. I didn't laugh once and found the whole thing a bit cringy, but everybody (including Chris Parnell) is giving it their all. This is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of thing, and I found that most of the jokes didn't land for me. Your mileage may vary.

There are a lot of missed opportunities here, partially due to the game's single-focused approach. They get the fundamentals right, but suffocate us with repetitive missions where we do the same thing over and over and over. And yet, despite being thoroughly disappointed by limited scope and dumb AI, I couldn't help but dive back in to further explore the beautiful open world. I'm even willing to forgive some of the terrible frame-rate issues I experienced on the PlayStation 4 because playing the game is so damn fun. Maneater is the kind of game that I didn't fall in love with, but still had a good enough time to collect everything. That's more than you can say about most open world games.

The repetitive level designs and crummy tasks take a bite out of what could have been the first must-own shark game. Maneater is a fun and exciting journey filled with great gameplay, intense battles and gorgeous scenery. And while that is usually enough to warrant a strong recommendation, this is a game that doesn't have the teeth when it counts. The dumb AI and boring missions blunt most of the momentum in this otherwise fun shark simulator. For as deep as the water goes, Maneater is frustratingly shallow.