Shallow, bland Maneater a total throwaway title
MANEATER feels like a game from a different era of gaming - one where surrealness and difference for difference’s sake were rewarded more handsomely than fine-tuned gameplay and solid progression systems.
Had this game been released in 2005, then perhaps it would have enjoyed the same accolades as Destroy All Humans, Psychonauts and their ilk.
As it stands, Maneater is, rather ironically, a touch too shallow to hold up against the more content-rich game experiences on the market today.
To be fair, writhing through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico as a muscle-bound bull shark killing machine does sound exciting, and in many ways it is.
Indeed, if Maneater had have been pared down to something more akin to the tongue-in-cheek laugh-riot of Goat Simulator, the general lack of depth would be a much easier pill to swallow.
As it stands, Maneater feels like a game that had the comedy slapped on second, in an attempt to paper over the numerous cracks in the foundations.
For example, the entire story is ostensibly flippant, but the character who is cast as your arch-nemesis delivers his lines a little too seriously to really mesh with the lighthearted vibe the rest of the game is trying to project.
Fortunately, the disembodied voice that follows you around for the entire game absolutely nails it from the get-go. Anyone who has watched Rick and Morty will immediately recognise the voice of Jerry, who provides much-needed comic relief at random points throughout the game.
The gameplay itself is a rather bland conveyor belt of travelling to locations and killing a certain amount of people or animals. This constant barrage of blandness is very much mirrored in the combat, which is essentially a button mashing affair and nothing else.
Graphically, Maneater is at its most unimpressive. For all of the water in the game you would imagine that at least that would look impressive, but there is very little by way of lighting, water physics or shaders that sheds the oceans and seas in a positive light.
Overall, it is very hard to find any redeeming qualities in Maneater. It is a wholly throwaway title that might be worth picking up in a heavily discounted future sale.