Directed by Alex Quick

Developed by Tripwire Interactive & Blindside Interactive

Published by Tripwire Interactive & Deep Silver

2020 saw a number of “mid-tier” produced games. These split the difference between major Triple A releases and the discernibly smaller indie games. Star Wars: Squadrons, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Man-Eater released to generally favorable reviews. Of course, the first two had major studios behind them while Man-Eater did not have that benefit. Still, it was a good year for that type of game.

Man-Eater is almost an old-school kind of game where the appeal of the game lies in the central novelty. Players control a bull shark swimming in polluted waters, going around chomping on anything and everything to level up, obtain genetic materials for mutations, and hunting down shark hunters. A natural evolution of 2006’s Jaws Unleashed, it feels a bit more akin to something like Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. At its best, when it’s really firing on all cylinders, it’s a zany, wild, fun power trip.

Unfortunately, it’s not always hitting its marks. In fact, there’s a somewhat strange arc to the whole game. In the first hour or two, the gimmick of controlling a shark as you swim and consume every creature and beach-goer you find drives it. However, that central conceit can’t drive the game for too long. After the first hour or two, the novelty starts to wear off and it drags. They do what is very natural in most video games in that accomplishing side quests and eating things grants you experience. That experience eventually translates into leveling up. Leveling up increases your shark’s physical traits and unlocks new special skills (known as “actives”) as well as new biological evolutions.

Those evolutions and skills add to the gameplay, doing some work to keep it engaging and entertaining. The basic structure here is fine. Super common in video games, for sure, and not innately bad. Yet it takes so long to level up enough for those elements to really kick into gear. If the first hour or two is fun because of the comical gimmick, the next five or six hours drag as you tediously grind. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for many players to put it aside for a while, or maybe forever.

If you stick with it and grind it out, though, the game then does loop back around to being fun. In fact, the most fun I had in the game was easily that period after “the grind,” when I became just a little bit overpowered. That’s not to say the game became absurdly easy. Shark hunters can gang up on you in such large numbers that you will take damage easily. Some special bosses known as “apex predators” can give you fits if you don’t get a hang of strategy. And often, those situations can come down to what biological traits you’ve equipped as well as your level.

A game like Man-Eater is one that should know full well going in what the appeal is. It can be tricky, especially very late in the game, but it’s not really one you pick up because you want to be challenged. This isn’t a From Software game where the appeal is having to muscle through persistent failure until you feel the immense gratification of overcoming the obstacle. No, this is really a game wherein the appeal is simply being a monster shark wreaking havoc on the bay. From start to finish, it doesn’t quite achieve that. For about ten hours, though, it absolutely does. And honestly? It was a blast.

Marking the end of its bonkers, rollercoaster arc, it then circles back around to feeling a bit tedious and not particularly fun by the final boss. That fight relies on a specific trick that the game doesn’t really teach you very well throughout the course of the campaign. It’s not that it’s difficult per se. It’s just that the game doesn’t naturally train players into thinking that the best strategy is even an applicable one. If you attack head on or use your tail whip, as you likely will do for most other fights, the final boss feels frustratingly impossible. Once you find out the trick – and it would be hard to blame players for simply looking it up – it then gets fairly easy again.

For me, the game ultimately proved worth it. I had a good time and was glad to have stuck with it. I would recommend it to several friends, but probably not everyone I know. There’s a lot about it that seemed specifically designed for me. I’ve been a shark nerd ever since I was a kid, which is the first thing. Most of the mission titles are also puns. And not just any puns, but good ones! Pun mission titles is not uncommon, but you’d be hard pressed to find a game that does them better. It really caught my attention when they started referencing Britney Spears and ’90s Coen Brothers movies. And, of course, Chris Parnell is excellent as the narrator. While you will experience repeated jokes, it was actually pretty surprising just how fresh his material was throughout the game. It doesn’t repeat anywhere near as much as you would expect.

That said, you’ll also need to approach the game with some patience. Technically, it’s a bit of a mess, especially late in the game when you’re a massive shark, have special abilities, and are getting hammered by quick enemies or tons of shark hunters. There were plenty of times where the game just struggles to keep up. It chugs along as you try to deal with the fact that they apparently didn’t add, well, frames. Any frames. Think Blighttown in the original Dark Souls, only much more frequently. On top of that, the game sometimes requires a load screen when you move from one section of the map to another. Sometimes, this occurs after you break down a wall or sewer cover, which provides a clear reason for loading. Other times, this happens in open water when there’s no visual indicator that you’re even crossing map lines.

At its worst, this happens during fights with shark hunters or apex predators and your fight is literally interrupted with a sudden load screen. Underwater fighting can get so chaotic that you lose all sense of direction, with no knowledge of where you are. It’s easy to wind up constantly crossing over sectional lines just enough to spark the load screen, then the fight resumes, and within seconds you’ve crossed the line again back into the other section and are met with another load screen. It doesn’t help that some of these map sections have lines so razor thin that even if you consult your map, you didn’t realize you were about to cross.

There’s certainly a conversation to be had about why it is some games will be priced at a lower point than others based on how long they are. All of the aforementioned games – Star Wars: Squadrons, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Man-Eater – were released at a discount price, $40, $50, and $30 respectively. All are “shorter games,” but aren’t necessarily worth less. Still, with Man-Eater, you can understand. The game won’t take you too much longer than 15 hours if you do everything. And it is a bit technically messy.

You just need some patience and to understand what it is you’re getting. With that, Man-Eater is a fun romp despite its technical and design flaws. By no means the “game of the year,” but there is certainly a place for these types of games. It very much does feel at home with things like Hulk: Ultimate Destruction or even Destroy All Humans. Hard to recommend this game to everyone, but I had a fun time overall.

Reductive Rating: It’s fine.

Available On: Windows, XBox One, XBox Series X/S, PS4, PS5