Jaws Unleashed

Thursday, 27 December 2007 00:00

(An Xbox game, in the X360 section since there's no original Xbox section)
Well what a refreshing change. When you see a title about the legendary shark known as Jaws, you think that it's another all out mission to destroy the shark and bring peace to whatever and wherever he's causing mass hysteria. Not in this case ... you play as Jaws and have to go on a 'Free Willy' killing, human munching rampage.

It's not that often you get to play games like this that are from the 'monsters' perspective, so I was a bit surprised when discovering that it's up to you to control the great white shark and feed upon innocent victims. Due to the game being based on the film, facts about the film or things related to the film would scroll along the bottom of the screen while it was loading which is pretty interesting.

Your first mission is to escape from the enclosure on Amity Island and into the open sea where you're free to roam and cause havoc in the sea and on the beaches. There are 11 main missions to complete and there are some side challenges that are more about just causing the previously mentioned havoc than anything to do with the main story. Side challenges each have 3 levels to them which are basically easy, medium and hard, the idea is to complete them and create mayhem as you terrorize people and even other creatures of the sea.

During missions, there are items that can be picked up to unlock things such as clips from the film or give you points, the points go towards 'upgrades' which are basically performance boosts. There are 5 abilities to enhance by spending the points you've accumilated, accuracy, power, speed, hunger, health. Increasing power and speed opens up advanced moves such as a Corkscrew Attack and Power Tail Whip, increasing accuracy and health is pretty self-explanatory while increasing hunger means you can go longer without feeding. A green bar gets lower the hungrier you get and if that reaches the bottom, you start losing health and eventually die, you can also die if you just stay still for too long, so if you need to stop playing for a while, you really need to pause the game.

Despite there being 11 stages and 32 side challenges, the game is quite short and while it may take some time at first to complete each stage, once you've worked out what to do the actual task is quite simple. It's really not a bad game, nice smooth graphics with Jaws being a whole shark rather than being broken up into sections of polygons, good water effects and atmospheric sound, just a pity that it's so short lived.

It's free-roaming, so you can go wherever and do whatever you like whenever you like, you're not forced to do the missions or the side challenges as you can do them at your own leisure, which is good for practising moves, sinking boats, chewing up people, etc. With a wide open area to explore, it can keep you busy for quite a while, but searching for extras and bonuses is only going to keep you occupied for a while before you finally put the game down and play the next one on your list.

It's a decent game of the legendary film, with some average stages that can be a bit too short and not too well thought out, plenty of side challenges to boost the points needed to upgrade your abilities that can be quite fun and all the sushi you can eat. I was a bit surprised at the loading times considering it was on the Xbox, but I suppose they couldn't have added the film facts unless they were just text on the screen.

Gameplay-wise, you could probably do this game over a weekend, maybe a week if you collect all the license plates and treasure chests. I would say it's worth getting if you like games with fish and sharks or are set under the sea, the missions are puzzle based in the sense that you usually have to do one thing before moving onto the next and that may involve moving things, picking things up to use on ther things or even throwing stuff. The 'puzzles' are hardly the most taxing, but should keep you busy and while the game seems to feel like it could have had more content, it's still enjoyable and worth a look.

7.8