Playing as a big shark ManEater Rated M for Mature (Xbox One, PS4, PC)
ManEater lets you live your dream of being the shark from Jaws, creating a fintastic experience.
The game has all the gore you’d expect from a shark game. The game screen will fill with blood-red water when you chomp down on large prey or humans.
The shark looks amazing – shark parts look detailed, complete with bone scales and electric fins as just a few of the customization options.
The game has detailed waters from the deep ocean to human infested beach areas. They are filled with a variety of creatures, with little load times.
It starts out with you learning some of the game’s controls, handling a full grown shark. You are captured, and the shark hunter that slays you finds a baby shark.
The game’s controls are simple enough; you move the shark with the left thumbstick and attack your prey with the X button. You learn more moves later in the game. The controls are perfectly balanced with you feeling like you can mulch any creature that stands in your way.
You start out as a baby shark thrown into the Bayou, and as you eat more and more creatures, you evolve and grow. The game is part action and part role playing. As you eat different creatures and complete different objectives, you gain experience points that are used to upgrade and level up your shark.
The bayou is the perfect starting point for the player to get used to fighting different creatures, and learning to evade and counter. The bayou is full of different fish, turtles, humans – and even some crocodiles.
Each area has a different variety of fish, with some that even attack when they see you. All the creatures have a level to them as do you.
If you try and attack a creature at a higher level than you, be prepared for a challenge. Even if you’re at a higher level than the creature, it isn’t going to be an easy fight. I found myself levels above some sharks or gators and they still gave me a heck of a battle.
The game is full of humour. As you play, it will have funny facts about the creatures thrown in. The collectibles are also full of funny facts and the same humour throughout.
It throws some different objectives at you to complete, from eliminating different fish in an area to killing the predator in that area as a couple examples.
The different main and side missions will always keep you busy. By completing some of the side missions and collecting everything, players can get parts that you can use to upgrade your shark. As part RPG, you unlock different parts for your shark from different teeth, fins, body and more. Different parts have different benefits from gaining more proteins and minerals.
This game isn’t some shallow cashin for shark fans, it’s got a full fledged story, great combat and RPG elements that will affect your evolution progression on screen.
Players can explore the game’s different areas, including ocean bottoms, caves and shipwrecks. I found myself just enjoying swimming around the rivers, and other bodies of waters exploring. I had so much fun just eating and exploring I found myself 12 hours in and only 30% done the story. There’s always something cool to see and explore.
As you get bigger and bigger, your shark can attack humans and take out different shark hunters. For each human you eat you gain infamy. If you fill your infamy you will have shark hunters come after you to kill you. These hunters get more and more difficult, testing your evading and countering. If you manage to kill a level’s main shark hunter, you gain tons of experience and extra parts.
It will take you around 10-20 hours to complete, with easily close to 20 hours collecting all the different collectibles and side missions.
I found a few bugs collecting some items, which the day one patch should fix. Otherwise the game was solid fun. If you’re looking for some cool shark action, or just something different, ManEater is a must play. 9/10. The game is also a bargain at $50 which is $20 less then new release games. I hope the developer continues to support the game with added content down the line.