Jaws Unleashed (PS2)

Although the 1975 film Jaws has had a lasting impact on pop culture (for better or worse), the film has had a number of product tie-ins over the decades, including in the video game space. While a handful of home console games exist, one that had caught my interest in particular was the 2006 game Jaws Unleashed, as while I wasn’t quite old enough to actually play it at the time, the idea of playing as the shark had always intrigued me, in spite of its reception. In the years since, I was reminded of this game by the existence of the game Maneater, which features a similar concept, and was recently lucky enough to find a wild PS2 copy of Jaws Unleashed. While I had been wanting to play the game anyway, this year being the 50^th anniversary of the original film provided motivation to finally boot it up for the first time. Although I found the expansion on the Jaws world interesting, the game unfortunately shows some age with the flawed execution of its gameplay.

More than 30 years following the events of the original Jaws film, Mayor Larry Vaughn, Jr. has made a deal with Environplus CEO Steven Shaw to create additional jobs for Amity Island and boost the local economy, while the concerns of marine biologist Michael Brody go ignored. When a shark that starts terrorizing Amity Island gets captured, Vaughn insists on keeping the shark alive as a tourist attraction, not wanting anything to disrupt his plans for the Gala 4^th of July celebration. Unfortunately, the shark manages to escape and eats Shaw’s son, leading to the hiring of Cruz Raddock to hunt the creature down.

While the game does contribute to the original film’s world by exploring its future, even accounting for the real-world amount of time since the film’s release, in some ways it recycles many of the same elements. To wit, a shark attacks Amity Island while Mayor Vaughn carelessly ignores Brody for the sake of short-term profit from a major holiday, leading to the hiring of a shark hunter following a tragedy at the hands of said shark. Despite this, it does give an interesting look at parts of Amity Island beyond what was seen in the film, and the shark’s rampage is implied to be at least partly related to Environplus since most main missions involve them. On that note, I will mention that the game itself, as well as the box and manual, consistently refer to the shark itself as Jaws, which led to me being confused on whether or not it was somehow supposed to be the same shark from Jaws (given it was blown up in the film’s climax) or if it was another, unrelated shark targeting Amity Island. Regardless, I may use that name in this review to refer to the playable shark.

As indicated earlier, you actually take control of the shark this time around, along with the abilities of one. Basic abilities include biting targets to regain health and satisfy hunger, complete with copious amounts of blood and body parts that justify the M rating, and holding the bite button (R1) to hold an object without biting or letting go, as well as ram (L1) or tail swipe (L2) to deal greater damage to destructible objects. Although humans can shoot you to drain your health, some marine animals you can eat, including other sharks, can also bite back if you’re not careful. With the vastness of the open water, it can be difficult to keep your eyes on a given target, especially smaller ones, but fortunately you can toggle Shark Vision to help lock onto what you’re after with a green glow.

 

Holding is better than biting in some situations.
(PC version screencaps from MobyGames.)

Additionally, if you happen to find yourself out of the water for too long, you are only given 10 seconds to get back in or else you die. Similarly, if you stay still for too long underwater, you have 25 seconds to get moving again or else you drown. While the latter mechanic is based on the idea that sharks have to constantly move or else they die, which is not actually true for most species, there are some that actually do need to keep moving in order to prevent suffocation, one of which happens to be the great white. This displays a surprising level of scientific accuracy that I honestly did not expect from a movie-licensed game, as does the nice attention to detail where Jaws rolls back his eyes while eating.

Early on in the game, you gain the ability to explore Amity Island in an open ocean, divided into three areas. In these areas, you can revisit Story Missions by swimming towards them, or swim towards buoys to play through various Side Missions, each of which have varying difficulties. Completing Side Missions, causing destruction or finding hidden collectibles earn you points, which can be spent in the Pause menu to upgrade Jaws’ stats and even unlock some advanced moves. Although you can’t save your progress at any time, Story Missions do have checkpoints, making it a lot easier to continue forward if you die. You can, however, save between Story Missions or at one of three Save Anchors in the open ocean, the latter of which is very helpful when taking a break near the next Story Mission but has the odd side effect of giving you low health when you load your save, even if you had full health beforehand.

Aside from hidden objects in each level, the game offers a variety of collectibles that unlock new features. Six of the Story Missions each contain four tin cans, with each full set unlocking a Jaws movie clip viewable in the “Movie” option in the main menu; of the collectibles, I actually went out of my way to unlock all six clips since the tin cans proved to be the easiest for me to collect. There are also 45 license plates distributed across all of the Story Missions, which unlocks a level select feature; while I did not find all 45 on my playthrough, I did still try to grab what I could find on my own. Lastly, there are 50 treasure chests spread across the open ocean, which I quickly gave up on trying to find all of due to sheer volume and time commitment required. Although numerous online sources claim that collecting all 50 chests unlocks God Mode, it is my understanding that this is only true for the Xbox version, while the PS2 version simply rewards you with 1,000,500 points, enough to max out your stats and then some.

The Jaws experience isn’t complete without its iconic score by John Williams, which this game thankfully delivers on. Rather than simply recycling the film’s score and calling it a day, however, the game’s composers instead created a brand new score with clear inspiration from the film’s, complete with situational intensity, but still made with the video game medium in mind. The effort put into the music shows a clear passion for the source material, as does the loading screens showing you various behind-the-scenes trivia for the original Jaws film while you wait. The voice acting for the main characters is generally good, but is otherwise hit-and-miss with the side characters, especially with the barks from human NPCs.

 

Sometimes your prey bites back.

 

While Jaws Unleashed has a solid foundation, it is not without flaws. Being able to control the shark is a great idea on paper, but the awkward control scheme holds back this feeling of power, in part due to having to spending more time in some areas fighting the camera than fighting the man (though I was able to get to the final boss despite this before quitting). It is also possible to get stuck in parts of the environment with almost no way to get unstuck, which on at least one occasion forced me to respawn at a checkpoint and have to redo several minutes of progress.

The game features some pretty decent graphics and is also good about having unique environments for the most part, with the exception of the open ocean, where the environments can look very same-y at times (especially the West section), making it easy to feel like you’re going in circles even when swimming in a straight line. Additionally, the open ocean map is pretty good about giving you the necessary information including where the next level is, but unless you went through the effort to get all the license plates, there is no way to tell where the completed levels are, adding some needless tedium to navigation. I will also mention that the level “Predator in the Bay” had drastic framerate drops in the back half to the point of worrying about the game crashing, as well as the level “Dead of Night” having an object that kept blinking out of existence as I tried to destroy it. It is also worth mentioning that cutscenes lack subtitles.

In addition to the aforementioned Jaws clips, there is some interesting bonus content, which includes trailers for the Aeon Flux video game, Psychonauts and the PSP game Infected. Perhaps more interesting is the inclusion of bios on the marine life found in the game, including their in-game stats as well as information about the real-life animal in question.

Jaws Unleashed has some interesting ideas, however its awkward controls and the design of the open ocean hold it back from greatness. That said, I wouldn’t consider it one of the worst movie-licensed games since the passion for the Jaws IP is evident and playing as the shark can still be fun in spite of the execution. While I wouldn’t not recommend it to a Jaws fan, fans of games like Maneater may also want to consider giving it a try to compare and form their own opinion.