I like a good stupid game. Something with a simple silly premise, easy to get into gameplay, good length. Something to just sit down, play, enjoy and move on, maybe replaying it again a few years later. And Maneater turned out to be a pretty good example of a game like that. Less than 10 hours of simple gameplay loops of swimming and chomping fish and people, upgrading the shark to be more ridiculous and finding secrets.
Maneater is an action adventure with light RPG elements set in a big open map that opens up bit by bit as you level up and progress through the story objectives. It’s extremely simple – you’re a killer shark, you swim, you eat, you gain levels and upgrade your abilities and you also mutate into more horrifying forms, gaining special abilities. The map is divided into several zones and each zone has several activities, like “eat x humans in y area” and some collectibles. Eating anything gets you resources that you use as upgrades and also levels you up. And that’s about it. It’s this simple gameplay loop that’s repeated over and over as you go to newer areas and get more ridiculous abilities.
It’s fun as is. It would get boring if it lasted longer, but luckily it last just enough to be fun. It’s a bit grindy. It’s very stupid. The whole “cable TV show” style of the game, with a narrator commenting things that you do, isn’t as funny as the developers thought, but does have its moments. And did I mention that it’s fun?
Even apart from its repetitive nature it has some weird issues. Controls are a bit off, sometimes the game can’t load areas seamlessly and gives a short loading screen, combat with more resistant enemies can become boring rather than challenging and the upgrades don’t go quite as ridiculous as I would’ve wished. The game is, in fact, surprisingly restrained in its stupidity, despite the premise.
But it’s some good silly fun. A lot of people might not find the game to their liking or grow bored. Some might find it just a bit too stupid. But I enjoyed it. And if you like a bit of simple underwater exploration and a lot of shark chomping, give Maneater a try.
P.S. Oh and you can skip the Truth Quest DLC, it’s really tedious and not worth the time.