In Maneater’s best moments, you’ll feel like the big bad shark that the game wants you to be. However, there are some things like repetitive quests, awkward controls and crashing that keep it from being the MEG it needs to be.
🦈 Maneater, on paper, is an amazing concept for a video game. I remember when this was revealed, I was ALL IN on it. You play as a shark that grows from baby to mega sized adult, all the while terrorizing humans and other ocean critters in an open world (ocean). What’s not to like?
📺 The game has a reality show/documentary style approach to the story where a guy named Scaly Pete, the shark hunter, is after you. Every time you finish a certain percentage of quests in an area, you get to see the newest episode where in Scaly Pete is trying to hunt you down. I thought this was a pretty fun approach to telling the story but I felt like it got old by the time we reached the end. Not so much because of the story beats, because some messed up stuff does happen on the show and I was into how deranged Scaly Pete seemed to be. It’s more the narrator of the show. The narrator was a funny joke for the documentary style at first but after a few hours, it gets old. AND it’s not because of his proper newscaster type voice on the show, it’s because he narrates almost everything you do in the game! The first time I hear him say something about me returning to my home, it's cute. After the 50th time, I’m over it. I ended up turning the volume down to 0 for that because luckily that was an option.
🃏 The developers really went all out on the jokes for this game, for better or for worse. There is a lot of humor in the reality show that I feel doesn’t hit. But the game itself is riddled with jokes all over. Everything from text puns like “Whale, there ya go!” or movie references to IT “We all float down here” or having a little Kaiju area -- it’s in here.
🪙 As I mentioned, this is an open world game and the first couple areas are very fun! But once you hit areas 3 and on, you realize the pattern of the quests and it’s the same thing every time. The quests and the collectibles are always the same. Luckily, the other creatures in the ocean do change from area to area, so that helps to keep some things fresh. Also, each area is a different environment from the last. The starting area is a swamp, then eventually you’ll make it over to more of a sea world theme park type area, which then eventually leads you out to the gulf.
🕹️ The gameplay itself is, again, super fun at first. And then towards the middle of the game, it gets better as you get bigger and more powerful with equipable evolution mods that change how badass your shark looks. Very cool! You end up fighting and eating fish, gators, turtles and even other sharks. And if you eat too many humans, you’ll bring out the hunters who want to take you out. This is a ton of fun for the first few hours but by the time you roll around to the last third of the game, predators and hunters become tougher and at times it feels like you’re really fighting the controls and camera instead of the enemies.
💧 The thing to keep in mind here is that this is an underwater game. Barely any games have controlled well underwater. Maneater gives you the ability to swim up and down, jump out of the water and even tail whip and ram into things. All of these things feel great at first but when things get more complicated as more tougher enemies are coming for you, you can easily lose track of the action. It was very common in the late part of the game to look around after attacking a boat, or after getting attacked by underwater hunters and not be able to see where it is to retaliate. Meanwhile, your health is dropping. Also, when you’re fighting boats, keep in mind as you rise in rank against them, your index finger will get tired biting over and over and over again. Mine did!
🫥 This might be more of a nitpick but searching for collectibles to 100% complete the map areas feels like a chore some times. In the first couple areas, collectibles are gated by the size of your shark. Like you can only break through when you’re big/strong enough. Those I don’t mind but some items are stowed in deep caves and it becomes a maze of looking for tiny open crevices to find certain items, which is not super fun. You do have the shark radar to help, but even that isn’t a big help for the really well-hidden items.
💬 Sometimes the UI text is misleading too. You’ll hit a certain level where you need to fight Scaly Pete to reach your next shark size. This annoying text/icon in the bottom right of the screen just says “Fight Scaly Pete” and doesn’t go away until you finally fight him. However, the game doesn’t tell you that you’ll be fighting once you have finished the quests in the area, so you might go looking for him right then (like I did) only to realize it’s not time yet.
😱 Oh, and the game crashed on me about 4 times during my sessions.
Despite all these things, I really liked the gameplay loop, no matter how samey it got. I had to see it through to the end and 100% it as well. I wanted to see the climactic ending with Scaly Pete and take out all the Apex Predators. And I may be biased because I really like giant monsters, so I have a soft spot for the shark. While I recognize the game has it’s flaws, I could overlook them for the fun I had and the fact that I got to play as a huge shark, eating everything in my path. I’m looking forward to checking out the DLC soon!
🦈 Maneater, on paper, is an amazing concept for a video game. I remember when this was revealed, I was ALL IN on it. You play as a shark that grows from baby to mega sized adult, all the while terrorizing humans and other ocean critters in an open world (ocean). What’s not to like?
📺 The game has a reality show/documentary style approach to the story where a guy named Scaly Pete, the shark hunter, is after you. Every time you finish a certain percentage of quests in an area, you get to see the newest episode where in Scaly Pete is trying to hunt you down. I thought this was a pretty fun approach to telling the story but I felt like it got old by the time we reached the end. Not so much because of the story beats, because some messed up stuff does happen on the show and I was into how deranged Scaly Pete seemed to be. It’s more the narrator of the show. The narrator was a funny joke for the documentary style at first but after a few hours, it gets old. AND it’s not because of his proper newscaster type voice on the show, it’s because he narrates almost everything you do in the game! The first time I hear him say something about me returning to my home, it's cute. After the 50th time, I’m over it. I ended up turning the volume down to 0 for that because luckily that was an option.
🃏 The developers really went all out on the jokes for this game, for better or for worse. There is a lot of humor in the reality show that I feel doesn’t hit. But the game itself is riddled with jokes all over. Everything from text puns like “Whale, there ya go!” or movie references to IT “We all float down here” or having a little Kaiju area -- it’s in here.
🪙 As I mentioned, this is an open world game and the first couple areas are very fun! But once you hit areas 3 and on, you realize the pattern of the quests and it’s the same thing every time. The quests and the collectibles are always the same. Luckily, the other creatures in the ocean do change from area to area, so that helps to keep some things fresh. Also, each area is a different environment from the last. The starting area is a swamp, then eventually you’ll make it over to more of a sea world theme park type area, which then eventually leads you out to the gulf.
🕹️ The gameplay itself is, again, super fun at first. And then towards the middle of the game, it gets better as you get bigger and more powerful with equipable evolution mods that change how badass your shark looks. Very cool! You end up fighting and eating fish, gators, turtles and even other sharks. And if you eat too many humans, you’ll bring out the hunters who want to take you out. This is a ton of fun for the first few hours but by the time you roll around to the last third of the game, predators and hunters become tougher and at times it feels like you’re really fighting the controls and camera instead of the enemies.
💧 The thing to keep in mind here is that this is an underwater game. Barely any games have controlled well underwater. Maneater gives you the ability to swim up and down, jump out of the water and even tail whip and ram into things. All of these things feel great at first but when things get more complicated as more tougher enemies are coming for you, you can easily lose track of the action. It was very common in the late part of the game to look around after attacking a boat, or after getting attacked by underwater hunters and not be able to see where it is to retaliate. Meanwhile, your health is dropping. Also, when you’re fighting boats, keep in mind as you rise in rank against them, your index finger will get tired biting over and over and over again. Mine did!
🫥 This might be more of a nitpick but searching for collectibles to 100% complete the map areas feels like a chore some times. In the first couple areas, collectibles are gated by the size of your shark. Like you can only break through when you’re big/strong enough. Those I don’t mind but some items are stowed in deep caves and it becomes a maze of looking for tiny open crevices to find certain items, which is not super fun. You do have the shark radar to help, but even that isn’t a big help for the really well-hidden items.
💬 Sometimes the UI text is misleading too. You’ll hit a certain level where you need to fight Scaly Pete to reach your next shark size. This annoying text/icon in the bottom right of the screen just says “Fight Scaly Pete” and doesn’t go away until you finally fight him. However, the game doesn’t tell you that you’ll be fighting once you have finished the quests in the area, so you might go looking for him right then (like I did) only to realize it’s not time yet.
😱 Oh, and the game crashed on me about 4 times during my sessions.
Despite all these things, I really liked the gameplay loop, no matter how samey it got. I had to see it through to the end and 100% it as well. I wanted to see the climactic ending with Scaly Pete and take out all the Apex Predators. And I may be biased because I really like giant monsters, so I have a soft spot for the shark. While I recognize the game has it’s flaws, I could overlook them for the fun I had and the fact that I got to play as a huge shark, eating everything in my path. I’m looking forward to checking out the DLC soon!