As we further advance towards photorealism and advanced physics simulations I slowly begin to feel like we lose sight of the main goal of gaming: fun. But then, a game comes around and reminds you of just how truly silly, absurd, and fun a game can be. This latest revelation for me came from the release of Maneater by Tripwire Interactive. This ridiculous Shark game had me laughing in my seat for the entirety of its play length! It’s so dumb, and I’m so happy!
Story
A dang Shark Hunter has killed your mother and permanently scarred you. You managed to bite off the offending creature’s hand but it just isn’t enough… You need revenge!
Gameplay
Maneater starts you off playing as an adult Bull Shark to teach you the ropes on how to play it. Navigating through the water comes to you pretty quickly and it doesn’t take long to work your way through this intro scene. The climax of this introduction also gives you just a brief taste of just how absurd this game will become in a few hours! Sadly, at the end of the intro, momma Bull Shark is captured and killed by a Shark Hunter named Scaly Pete and you assume the role of the baby shark the previously mentioned douche cuts out of momma.
As the baby shark (doo doo doo doo doo doo) escapes it takes with it a sizable chunk of Pete’s arm and eating it is the first thing you have to do in Maneater. After the rampaging intro, playing as the baby is a stark contrast in difficulty. You don’t have any of the moves you were just taught to use and you are just a tiny little shark. Thankfully the first area you explore as part of Maneater's main story isn’t super difficult but there can be death aplenty for your young creature if you aren’t careful. As I worked my way through the area I picked numerous fights with alligators and was put down rather quickly for my insolence.
This game is technically an RPG, so as a level 1 shark I kept trying to go after level 8 enemies. Not sure why I thought it would work. I quickly learned that discovering landmarks and hidden caches was the best use of my time to gain experience and to level up until I could mature and evolve into a teenage shark. Around level 4 or 5 I could finally take on the dang gators and show them who was boss! Just not multiple at the same time which seemed to happen quite often…
Once you reach the teenage stage the game really begins to open up. You gain access to other areas with far more quests and combat opportunities. This is also the first area you can finally begin attacking humans and this is what I ended up doing for the next few hours. There are a number of quests that involve attacking humans in certain areas. Some of these humans will be in boats while others will be lounging around on a beach; all are susceptible to your attacks as it is quite easy to jump out of the water and hunt them down.
Of course, attacking humans will inevitably lead to an armed posse of Shark Hunters coming to kill you. And this is exactly what I wanted from this game! Swarms of airboats begin to come after me and I leap out of the water to take out gunners and drivers alike. The more destruction I cause, the more hunters appear, until I was finally able to bring out the first of the ranked hunters. By killing ranked hunters you gain access to new body upgrades and abilities which make the game even more absurd than it already was!
After learning that the ranked hunters were the key to unlocking these abilities I had no problem just taking them all out until I had what I wanted. Each rank increase I managed gifted me with more wonderful upgrades to use on my prey! Of course, the better upgrades I got, the shark hunters got in kind, and it wasn’t long before I had to dodge TNT and boats went from tiny little airboats to full on Coast Guard patrol boats. I didn’t even care because by that point I was an other-worldly adult shark that spewed lightning from my jaws and could turn into a streaking bolt of lightning to avoid harm. Yes that’s right, lightning shark I am!
Lightning as it turns out was just one of three different sets of upgrades the game gives you access to over the course of your playthrough. The other sets are the Bone and Shadow set but I didn’t find them as entertaining as that original Bio Electric set personally. In each area of the game is a hidden grotto you can go to and change out equipped parts orupgrade your abilities. Upgrading is straight forward: eating different animals or humans gives you different resources. These resources are then spent on upgrades. I never had much trouble getting the required resources to upgrade my parts and abilities throughout my playthrough thanks to my constant rampages!
Eventually I did go back to the main story but honestly it was pretty forgettable to me and it was those hours of just terrorizing beach goers and destroying boat after boat that will stick with me in the long term. If you are a story-only type of player, Maneater should only take you about 11-15 hours to complete. Not a bad length, but the missions can get repetitive.
Visuals
Rather than rely on photorealism, Maneater employs some stylized graphics to depict its world and I think it was the right choice. There is an obscene amount of gore in this game and if it had been more realistically portrayed I likely wouldn’t have played it. Instead it looks just as goofy as the rest of the Maneater premise is to play! There isn’t a ton of advanced lighting or water effects in play but what is here looks very nice to me and I love that each individual area has its own unique look, from a resort beach all the way down to the swampy marshlands.
Audio
Audio work for Maneater isn’t too shabby either, though it will be filled with lots of screams and cries over a shark attacking people. The definite highlight though comes from the narration by Chris Parnell. As you progress through the game you will get numerous quips about what is happening and they are hilariously inaccurate to the real world. I guess that matches the theme of the game perfectly though!
Replayability
While rampaging and doing the main missions is good and all, there is a good deal of exploration you can do inbetween. There are numerous secret caches, landmarks, and heirlooms to find in each area. Finding them all can require some late game upgrades so be prepared to spend a good amount of time doing it.
What It Could have Done Better
The biggest downfalls for Maneater to me are repetition and a largely forgettable story. If I didn’t get such a kick out of the absurdity of going on rampages I likely wouldn’t have made it too far into the game.
Verdict
Maneater is without a doubt the stupidest game I have played in a very long time but also some of the most fun I have had at the same time. It has its flaws but underneath it all is just a fun game and that will always shine through the faults. I would probably recommend waiting for a sale before jumping in, but the $40 asking price doesn't make this a bad impulse buy!
