Maneater is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. The story revolves around you as a baby bull shark and your desire for revenge against shark hunter Scaly Pete, who killed your mommy shark.
Pros
- Satisfying mechanics for survival.
- Tons of in-game content.
- Hilarious narrations.
Cons
- It gets dull if played long hours.
- Repetitive mechanics can be boring.
- The final battle is hella insane.
The Maneater game was first announced way back in 2018 and is now available for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game will soon be ported to Nintendo Switch later of 2020. There are, however, no words yet for the Steam platform but you can purchase the game on the Epic Games Store for US$15.99.
Developed by Blindside Interactive along with publisher Tripwire Interactive, the game can now be purchased for US$39.99.
Gameplay and Story
As a game, Maneater is set on an open-world action RPG where YOU are the shark. The game is pretty straightforward in the beginning. You’ll be prompted with a storyline, cutscenes, tutorial, and then progressive missions. The game story begins as you being a baby bull shark and your mommy shark gets killed in front of you. You’ll then wreak havoc towards anything on your path. You’ll be able to chew, crunch, and eat a few catfish, turtles, and later on, humans as you grow bigger. Most of the progression in this game is about eating everything on sight but of course, excluding your own predators such as shark hunters and barracuda.
As you grow bigger, gain body mass, and age you’ll be able to take bigger prey. So mostly, the game progression revolves around eating and killing with missions to guide you through the game. It can be fun for the first few hours but it starts to get dull later on. On a later part of the game, you will start noticing repetitive missions which can be boring since every mission involves killing and eating.
Predators
Despite being a shark, you also have a fair share of predators that you need to keep an eye on. Orca is just one of those predators and what we find the most challenging predator to avoid. Orcas are not called “Whale killers” for nothing. Another one is a Barracuda, as the name suggests, these predators are swift and can really cause you a headache if encountered.
Finally, the most hard-hitting predator that will surely give you some hard time is shark hunters. These guys are there to simply kill you with fast-moving arrows or spears. It’s kind of annoying sometimes since it’s quite hard to evade their shots. Once you get hit, they really hit hard.
World Content
As you progress through the game, you will need to eat and eat and eat to provide your body enough nutrition to bulk up. You can also seek out landmarks, discover hidden areas, collect license plates to hunt the owners down, and more. To make the experience fun, the narration is provided as you play through and these are the voice of Chris Parnell, Jerry Smith from Rick and Morty, and Dr. Leo Spaceman.
We couldn’t get enough of the narration of Chris Parnell with his wildlife documentary voice every time we kill something. The most comedic part is when he voice cheekily the highlights of some areas such as underground tunnels, crashed UFO, and the carcass of the Titanic.
Progression Highlights
One main mechanic of the game is munch through people to grow bigger. However, as you do, you also raise the infamy level that attracts more hunters to hunt you. Similar to Grand Theft Auto, a higher infamy level means more advanced and powerful hunters to take you down. This includes weaponry such as spears, lasers, and explosives up to armed drivers to take you down.
The fastest way to avoid hunters if things get too overwhelming is to swim down to the depths and wait for them to lost interest. Although, facing these hunters head-on will yield big rewards. Furthermore, celebrity hunters will come down to hunt you from time to time. If you take out these celebrity hunters, you’ll be able to find items that will let you upgrade yourself with bionic tails, bone jaw, enhanced sonar, and more.
Final Thoughts…
Ultimately, the game is fun to play and will give you hours and hours of wreaking havoc fun with a good amount of satire from popular voices. Things can quickly get out of hand if you start munching more than what you should but that’s where the open-world RPG stands in. However, the storyline is pretty straightforward and the linearity of the story is guided by the missions provided to you.
Last but not least, you can do tons of other things in-game but sometimes, it can get a little bit boring most especially of the challenges are not up to par with the most extreme ones you’ve gone through.