Maneater, developed by Tripwire Interactive, puts players in the shoes (or rather fins) of an adolescent bull shark, on a quest to get revenge after the death of their mother at the hands of famed shark hunter Scaly Pete.
Maneater opens in the style of a TV show revolving around the lives of shark hunters as they stalk the demons of the deep.
Throughout the game you can upgrade your bull shark (I called mine Nibbles) and outfit it with a number of killing abilities, such as bone teeth and electricity. The mutations look cool and provide advantages like increased defense and poison, but there aren’t that many to choose from.
Being able to fully customise your shark would’ve only helped to fully immerse me in this #shaRkPG, as the developers call it (Hammerhead is best you can’t tell me otherwise).
Small fish serve as not only ways to level up (slowly), but as a tasty mid-fight snack to recover hp quickly, so you can finish off that pesky barracuda. The gory detail when doing this is on point, as you can bite the limbs off of other underwater predators.
The game does start to drag when growing your shark, though this is offset a little with Chris Parnell’s David Attenborough-esk delivery. I was also unsure about being a shark in the Bayou, but I guess bull sharks eat anything, alligators included apparently.
The fun comes not from swimming around aimlessly hunting collectables, or going from mission to mission, but from simply killing humans (Jaws style, or flopping around on the beach) and bosses. These include Apex predators such as Mako sharks, Great Whites and even a Sperm Whale.
There is also satisfaction gained from chomping down fish, as biting, thrashing, and tail smacking them straight out of the water is a sight to behold. The combat is sloppy though so be warned, and this isn’t helped by the camera or the lack of a lock on.
The RPG elements are done both well and poorly, as the game can feel grindy and overly long, even though there’s only around 15 hours of gameplay. This is due to inconsistent quests as some are boring and repetitive, and some are genuinely fun. Watching your shark grow from a pup to a fully grown (and mutated) killing machine, and terrorising the sea life as well as shark hunters makes it all worth it in the end.
The best way I can describe the controls is that Maneater is like what TV actors look like when ‘playing’ video games. Constantly mashing L2, L1 and R2 (on PS4) to eat prey quickly whilst dodging is the way the entire game is played. It’s also not the most responsive and R2 attack lunges can miss completely with no lock on feature available. Tapping R1 is the safest way to traverse, as your shark can leap out of the water whilst dodging.
The map, which contains 8 differing areas, is filled with objectives and things to do. This can include eating people, finding landmarks, upgrading, and hunting specific targets. This is fine, but for me at least there doesn’t feel like there is a main goal, apart from getting big and killing Scaly Pete. This lead to me getting stuck in Dead Horse Lake, not knowing that you can simply shark jump your way across to the next area. Pressing circle then becomes incredibly useful when you realise that it pings nearby quest items to the map. Also, be on the lookout for glowing orange lights leading into a cave when in a new area; that’s your neon hideout where you can save and upgrade.
Final thoughts
Ultimately, Maneater is about a man eating shark. There’s not too much that can be done given the material, but what is done is done well. The developers manage to make living as a shark both realistic and completely over the top. Watching people frantically swim away as your exposed dorsal fin nears the beach, or rolling around munching them on land, is the most fun that can be had as a genetically enhanced killer bull shark. It’s silly fun and that’s all it needs to be. Personally I’d give it a go if you’re looking for a fun way to pass the time, or you just really like murderous marine animals.
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Maneater
The Good
- Voice over by Chris Parnell (Archer, Rick and Morty)
- Gloriously brain dead eating action
- Sharky animations
The Bad
- Not able to choose your shark
- Lack of lock-on feature for combat
- Some of the visuals look dated