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Jaws Unleashed
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Graphics & Sound:
I don’t know what the deal is with remaking old movies into games these days…. I can name three off the top of my head, all circa 1970s: The Warriors, The Godfather and now Jaws: Unleashed. Are people running around in bell-bottoms and tie-dye too?
Regardless of our love for nostalgia, this title from Ecco The Dolphin creators Appaloosa Interactive tries to recapture that paranoid feeling of swimming along the beach… knowing a giant is lurking just beneath the placid surface…
Visually, it is a mixed bag. While the many environments are rather colorful with many types of aquatic plants, fish and whatnot, the terrain and human characters look downright pitiful. Blocky, grainy and poorly animated, your next meals just need to be put out of their badly designed misery. Pop-up also runs amok. Oh, and the blood is just waaaay over the top in this game. Honestly, you would think we entered some kind of vampire crossover with the amount of hemoglobin these folks spill. With a little restructuring of the gore, the developers might have saved themselves from an “M” rating, and branched out into a younger audience. Or maybe they wanted that shock value to entice said youngsters…. either way, it just comes across as downright goofy.
On the other hand, Jaws (well “Bruce” is his official title) isn’t too shabby looking though, as his huge girth swings to and fro with ample fluidity, and his massive jaws crash with resounding power. Honestly, launching into the air and tail whipping a speedboat is pretty freaking cool.
In the sound department, the host of effects are a tad subdued and generic, although the cries of fleeing citizens never quite got old, no matter how ridiculous they sound yelling “SHARK, SHARK!” as they get torn in two. It really makes you feel like you are the terror of the seas, causing so much psychological trauma by just popping your wee little fin out of the water for a brief second. That, and the fact you are 35 feet long, may have something to do with the less than warm reception…
John Williams once again graces us with his classic themes, but they don’t seem very elaborate, or original - more like samples gleaned from the film itself. Not exactly Oscar worthy stuff. |
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Gameplay:
Jaws: Unleashed basically casts you as “Bruce”, the terribly misunderstood pacificist great white, just trying to live out his days with his buddy SpongeBob -- until he eats him. Ok, the truth is you find yourself plaguing the quaint New England community of Amity Island with your numerous rampages. Sounds like fun, eh? To be honest, it kinda is.
First, a handy tutorial walks you through the first phases of the game: how to eat, how to kill, how to move and so on. After this, the oceans are yours for the taking! In many ways, you are given free reign over your environment, the only things holding you in are the shore, and maybe a few walled-in facilities. You can go feast on some turtles, or decide your tummy is full enough to take out some of those pesky humans. Heck, early on you can take out a freaking pier using only your sturdy snout and tail - that’s what I call some power! You can also swiftly pull under swimmers, crush underwater cages and capsize boats; to name a few of the nefarious acts you can perform. Later on, you can spend experience points on special moves (a la Spider Man), that add to an already deep arsenal of moves.
These various altercations take place in a rather disjointed storyline, one that pieces together boss encounters with a seemingly endless supply of human chow. On top of all this, there are a bunch of side-missions like finding hidden items, eating a set number of something, or even races - these really help to break up the monotony of carnage.
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Difficulty:
Jaws: Unleashed isn’t terribly difficult, which is good and bad. Most experienced gamers will quickly pick-up on the button combos, and the right time to either consume or flee. The enemy A.I. doesn’t pose much of a threat either; they clearly run on a set pattern of actions and will rarely use strategy to defeat you. As long as you stay afloat, you can beat this game in a day or two.
Really, the only aggravating issue is the lack of clear direction at times. A real clear example is early on when you are trapped in a holding tank, surrounded by scuba men wielding harpoon guns and scientists in white lab coats. Now… apparently you are supposed to deduce that you need a keycard to unlock the nearby gate. I thought, “Great, now this is Doom meets Ecco the Dolphin -- how does a shark even use a key card, let alone a computer?” Well after a bit of logical thought, I concluded that I had to litterly snag a scientist and forcibly ram him into the keypad, thus opening the door. Needless to say, I nearly lost it upon the first sight of Bruce launching himself onto a catwalk, mouth agape, waiting for said scientist to walk by to assist his escape.
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Game Mechanics:
While Bruce does handle pretty well and his actions are responsive, some of the controller combinations make for some interesting stretches. But really, the main offender is the supremely wonky camera system. You have a choice of toggling 1st person mode, but that really limits your peripheral awareness and also just feels a bit odd flying through the water with nothing in front. Appaloosa could have added a snout or something to mimic some kind of depth perception. For most of the game, you will play in 3rd person and the camera is not locked behind you (although there is an option to do this, but this doesn’t work either). Heaven forbid you should get in a cramped area; the camera will spin around like mad, often trapping you with no clear avenue out. Sadly, since you have to know how you are aligned to pretty much accomplish anything, having screwy angles really drives you mad after a while. While the lock-on function works occasionally, the actual reticule that highlights each object is hard to make out and the camera itself doesn’t always align with said target.
Another one of my major pet peeves is the save “checkpoint” system, forcing you to inevitably replay sequences over and over. And when you consider the frustration caused by the crappy camera, you may not be so inclined to just start over. This is yet another reason why PC games are often a step ahead of their "limited save" console cousins. The days of replaying content should have died out with the arcades.
Ultimately, Jaws: Unleashed can be pretty fun at times -- how many games out there let you be a 35 foot man-eating shark? And the fact it has a modest $30 price tag also attracts those diehard "Jaws" fans, the ones who have seen all four movies, even the crappy 3D one with Dennis Quad and Lewis Gossett Jr. (oh, how I loved them both in Enemy Mine). Still, with serious camera issues, sub par graphics/sound, and an antiquated save system, this title just doesn’t seem to float in these turbulent waters. |
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-Tybo, GameVortex Communications AKA Tyler Whitney |
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