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.

Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff (360)

Following the release of a video game based on Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2^nd Dimension, another one followed two years later titled Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff. Unlike Across the 2^nd Dimension, however, while the game was available across all then-current Nintendo platforms (DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii U), it would also be made available for Xbox 360 rather than PS3, allowing Xbox players access to their own Phineas and Ferb console experience. As I am not a heavy Xbox player, I opted for the Xbox 360 version anyway when hunting down this game simply to have an excuse to use the system, and was fortunate enough to grab a physical copy from a used game store whose inventory was disappearing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. While short, Quest for Cool Stuff is executed well enough that its story feels like it could easily fit into the show’s 104 days.