Maneater Review
"A Gnarly Feeding Frenzy"
Campaign
This really is the ultimate feeding frenzy, or at least the best shark game ever made. Set against the backdrop of a shark hunting show you’ll work through a story of revenge and danger. As a young bull shark you’ll be working your way up the food chain by munching everything in sight.
Early on you gain a taste for human, and that only grows as you start to. You get to move through the evolutions of a shark, and it’s just awesome. It’s basically Feeding Frenzy on steroids with some insanely gory and graphic scenes that are delightful to witness.
This is also just a really fun game, featuring lots of action and a good amount of content for what sort of experience this is trying to provide. There’s a loose story element based on revenge, and conflict which is interesting. This is again, set against the backdrop of a reality fishing type show.
That fits perfectly in with the era of today, and it was a neat element to have holding this experience together. Past that, some of the missions were slightly repetitive. I didn’t really care as it was just lots of fun, and you had a sense of freedom here.
You could level however you wanted, which was by mostly eating and just exploring open world sea areas. These spots were filled with other fish that changed based on which part of the game you were at, regular people living their lives and collectibles. This game is filled to the brim with things to search and hunt for. This adds even more value to the main chunk of gameplay, and it was just a grand time.
Gameplay
This has some very well done animations to it, and fluid shark movement. You’ll whip through the deep ocean below, or skim along the surface. You also can venture outwards on land to munch unexpecting humans. Your shark moves well, and the controls felt great for this type of experience. You can also lock on to targets such as those hunters that come by boats and then carry them into the ocean. This is again, a very graphic and bloody time.
Pools of blood and gore everywhere, its super gnarly and entertaining to see in action. I found the visuals to generally be quite impressive, and it ran very well on Xbox One X. I did face a single crash, but after the pre-launch update I didn’t face anymore issues the entire time through. Another really interesting aspect of play has to do with the evolutions that are present.
You continuously grow and level, but can also enhance your shark. You can add things such as electric teeth, and then also upgrade those further through the various things that you feed on. Be careful though, sometimes there are bigger creatures out there and even apex predator targets to deal with. It’s a dangerous sea, and at the start you’re definitely not the biggest critter that’s out there swimming along the current.
The Conclusion
Maneater is basically Feeding Frenzy on steroids, it’s just an awesome gnarly and fun time. I had an absolute blast playing this game and if you don’t take it too seriously you will too. This was just great, providing hours of play and lots of collectibles to gather if you care for that sort of thing. The customization options for you shark were great and it really does provide a grand RPG-like experience but in the water.
The concept works well, and I’m shock that this sort of thing even exists. It’s the best shark based game ever, they deliver entirely on what they’re trying to provide and it’s just enjoyable. I was swimming along singing “Baby Shark” and then growing into one monstrous creature of the sea.
It was excellent seeing so many attempt to flee from the expanding presence I was becoming. You really do feel rewarded as you level. Not only in terms of what you can eat, but the new challenges you can conquer and the way the sea gets cleaner as you progress. Oh, and Chris Parnell provides some stellar narration throughout the experience.
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Maneater Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by One PR Studio
Rating Overall: 9.0
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