Maneater Impressions - Shark Simulator

CriticalGaming

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Maneater is a game.

Yep. That's pretty much the long and short of this one. Thanks for coming everyone, see you for the next game.

Okay well, it's a game in which you play a shark and you go around hunting things. Not just people, like the game's title suggests, though you do eat a lot of a fucking people. You also hunt fish, alligators, seals, and other shit.....but mostly people. People on beaches, people on boats, everywhere you can get to people you;ll be eating them.

And you know what? It's fun. Yeah I mean that's the most basic of terms I could say for this one. It's fun. It's kind of mindless video game fun, the kind of game you can sit down and play and not really care about objectives (though there are plenty of those) or collectibles (though there are also plenty of those) just swim around and eat things. Maneater strikes an interesting middle ground as well, and probably the most notable thing about it is the gore in the game as expected right? Your shark will turn the waters red with blood as you slaughter people, but somehow the game manages to keep everything light hearted.

The voice over work is great and funny enough that what you are doing as a shark never really crossing that line to disturbing because it's so comically done. There is somehow a good naturedness about this game, it's colorful, it's charming, it's quite unexpectedly good if I'm being honest. I didn't expect to have as much fun with this as I have. I figured it would be a sort of throw away game, but no. It's good if you are able to sit down and turn your brain off for a bit, it's quite a fun time.

It's a little expensive though. The concept is fairly straight forward and I don't know if 40 bucks is really the right price of a game that kind of falls upon the one gimmick and never really moves beyond that. Maybe things change later as more powerful hunters try to stop your rampage, and the game ends up being more involved later. But my first thoughts are this might have been a better 20 dollar title, maybe 30, but I think 40 might be pushing it for a lot of people.

Rampage......hmmm....you know this does kind of remind me of those old Rampage games where you play big monsters and your goal is to knock all the buildings down while bigger and better military forces try to stop you. I miss those games, maybe why I like Maneater so much.
 

Dalisclock

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The reviews I've seen are pretty much along the same lines. You kill things, upgrade your shark and repeat for like 10 hours. There's not much variety other then getting better upgrades for make your shark more powerful/terrifying and getting to eat bigger/tougher things. And if that's all you want out of a game, it's the game for you. Otherwise, it might be a bit sparse for the asking price and runtime.

Apparently Chris Parnell does some fun voiceover work.
 

Dalisclock

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Is that the guy? I have no idea who that is, but i've seen people namedropping him like it's a big deal or something.
If you've ever watched Archer, he's one of the voice actors on that(Cyril, to be percise). He's also Jerry on Rick and Morty. So a couple of fairly popular shows under his belt.
 

CriticalGaming

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If you've ever watched Archer, he's one of the voice actors on that(Cyril, to be percise). He's also Jerry on Rick and Morty. So a couple of fairly popular shows under his belt.
I don't watch TV at all so I literally have only a passive knowledge that those shows exist. But neat, I guess that fans will enjoy him in this game. His lines are well done.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Maneater is a game.

Yep. That's pretty much the long and short of this one. Thanks for coming everyone, see you for the next game.

Okay well, it's a game in which you play a shark and you go around hunting things. Not just people, like the game's title suggests, though you do eat a lot of a fucking people. You also hunt fish, alligators, seals, and other shit.....but mostly people. People on beaches, people on boats, everywhere you can get to people you;ll be eating them.

And you know what? It's fun. Yeah I mean that's the most basic of terms I could say for this one. It's fun. It's kind of mindless video game fun, the kind of game you can sit down and play and not really care about objectives (though there are plenty of those) or collectibles (though there are also plenty of those) just swim around and eat things. Maneater strikes an interesting middle ground as well, and probably the most notable thing about it is the gore in the game as expected right? Your shark will turn the waters red with blood as you slaughter people, but somehow the game manages to keep everything light hearted.

The voice over work is great and funny enough that what you are doing as a shark never really crossing that line to disturbing because it's so comically done. There is somehow a good naturedness about this game, it's colorful, it's charming, it's quite unexpectedly good if I'm being honest. I didn't expect to have as much fun with this as I have. I figured it would be a sort of throw away game, but no. It's good if you are able to sit down and turn your brain off for a bit, it's quite a fun time.

It's a little expensive though. The concept is fairly straight forward and I don't know if 40 bucks is really the right price of a game that kind of falls upon the one gimmick and never really moves beyond that. Maybe things change later as more powerful hunters try to stop your rampage, and the game ends up being more involved later. But my first thoughts are this might have been a better 20 dollar title, maybe 30, but I think 40 might be pushing it for a lot of people.

Rampage......hmmm....you know this does kind of remind me of those old Rampage games where you play big monsters and your goal is to knock all the buildings down while bigger and better military forces try to stop you. I miss those games, maybe why I like Maneater so much.

You know, after just the first couple paragraphs the first thing I thought of was Rampage: World Tour. Man that brings me back. Used to get like half a dozen Big Kings from BK when they were like buy one get one and take turns beating it in one sitting. Those days were awesome.