The long-in-development, budget-priced Jaws Unleashed has itself a glorious, primal hook that can be best summed up in four (wait, make that five) words: You. Are. The. Goddamned. Shark. For slackers well acquainted with Shark Week, this should be 'nuff said. Those more skeptical about the long-term playability factor of being a fish stand a good chance of getting snagged by both the impressively open play style, and some notably sick touches. Man, does Flipper ever get screwed.
Set around an Amity Island some 30 years after the initial Spielberg-directed smorgasbord, the gameplay adopts a quasi-Grand Theft Auto feel, where your pissed-off eater of men freely cruises the well-stocked shallows between a number of increasingly difficult main and secondary missions. Rewards given for each successful gobble allow for ability upgrades along the way, to the point where you can eventually pluck people from sailboats and take down low-flying helicopters with ease. You will find yourself doing both of these, compulsively, until the wee small hours.
Infringing on the fun somewhat are a number of annoying glitches (and occasional game-freezing bugs), from the way the title character occasionally gets stuck in the scenery, to some notably subpar cut-scene graphics and voiceovers. Fortunately, the programmers at Majesco, previously responsible for the socially conscious, decidedly more genteel Ecco the Dolphin series, know their marine physiology and have delivered a detailed beaut of a main character. Watching the way that, say, the giant shark's eyes roll over white while chowing down on an even more gargantuan squid makes up for no small amount of surface annoyances.
The notably macabre overall sensibility keeps things flowing as well. An early stage, for example, has you escaping from SeaWorld, laying waste to various exhibits and bystanders along the way, and culminating with a boss fight where you rip Shamu a new one in front of a horrified audience. Grossly inventive as they often are, though, these main missions do somewhat run counter to the core idea of controlling a mindless eating machine (the tired old keycard search gets revisited here, although to give the programmers some credit, in this case it involves tearing the arm off of a luckless scientist and swimming in front of a card scanner). For purists, the side challenges deliver on the promise of 100 percent carnivore porn action, with objectives that include gulping down a fleet of Baywatch rejects, taking out unwary bungee jumpers, or stealth munching a black lab.
Grisly scripted highs aside, what ultimately impresses most is the time between missions, where players are free to motor around causing as much hellacious aquatic carnage as they see fit, John Williams blaring on the soundtrack all the while. Players accustomed to the shiniest and brightest may scoff, but successfully evoking the same sense of malicious freedom as in the GTA series is nothing to sneeze at. Not to wax poetic or anything, but turning unwary tourists into chum has a Zen quality.
