"The absurdity makes it fun"

Picture this.

You're a high school student on summer break. For a fun date, you take your girlfriend to the beach for some fun in the sun. After a brief dip in the cool ocean, you go back to the beach to do a little tanning. Suddenly someone screams, and the next thing you see is the flash of white teeth and a dead, black eye, as a 20 foot shark launches itself out of the water onto the beach, grabs your girl in its gaping maw, then wiggles back down to the water, dragging her screaming into the depths. The last you see of her is her upper torso in a pool of red before she gasps one last breath and disappears beneath the waves.

I know.

If that scene happened in a movie or a game, it would be terrifying. Possibly a little sad if there was some good character development for the girlfriend, or you're particularly sentimental for romance on beaches.

However, as Jaws Unleashed teaches you, if you're the shark, it's pretty darn funny.

Yep, in this game you're a man-(woman, seal, killer whale, boat, license plate)-eating shark. The goal of the game? Swim around and eat things. As Richard Dreyfuss so aptly put it in the movie - "This is a great white. All they do is swim, and eat, and make little sharks - and that's it". The developers stick to that formula, only without the little sharks.

The game plays a bit like a pseudo- flight simulator. The shark controls like a big fat airplane with teeth. He's cumbersome, which is pretty much how I expect a 3 ton fish to handle. Basically you hold down a button to make him swim, and control direction with the analog stick. The other buttons allow you to bite, charge/headbutt, tail slap, and turn on "shark vision" (which just tells you what's good eatin' in your field of vision - sharks really do have a one-track mind!). There are some control glitches as well - since sharks only swim forward, it is relatively easy to trap yourself in a small space. For instance, the tutorial level has a sunken ship with a hole in it - ram your way into the hole to get a prize, then spend a half hour trying to wiggle out by moving forward and thrashing side-to-side.

Graphically, the game pushes no envelopes. The victim models are dwarfed in comparison to the shark, and are not well detailed. Same with boats, water, reef, etc. For me, the exception and graphical highlight is the blood. When you injure prey (particularly humans), a ripped-off limb will hemorrhage. You can also get your crunch on and just chew people to death. In either case, the blood properties are fantastic. Especially the swallow maneuver, as your victim kind of explodes in an underwater shower of gore. It's magical.

The plot - it fits right in with the sequels to the movie. Michael Brody just happens to be in the same place as a giant shark, and must try to stop it from terrorizing a small island community. (yawn). Movies 2-4 were pretty much the same thing - lacking that primal, terrifying element, because sharks taking revenge is just too silly to even suspend disbelief for. Ignore the plot. Just be the shark.

The gameplay is likewise mundane. It's similar to Grand Theft Auto in that you have free-roam play, with collection quests (mmmmm, license plates!), side quests (mmmmm, baby seals!) and main plot quests (mmmmm, Michael Brody's boat!). It lacks the depth of the GTA games, though, because interaction with your environment is limited. All you can really do in the game is bite things, with the occasional headbutt thrown in.

So, to sum up, the game is a little below average from a strict technical standpoint. Graphics are nothing special, gameplay fails to innovate, and controls are clumsy (albeit purposefully so).

However, I give the game extra points for the fun-factor. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but the experience is strangely addictive. It is at least partly due to the absurd moves you can pull off as the shark. I emit a wicked cackle every time I launch myself onto a beach to grab a hapless victim, and return with him screaming into the deep blue sea. There's a visceral satisfaction to violently shaking a victim and ripping off a limb, then doing it again when they try to escape by swimming back the surface. And knocking an X-treme sports junkie of a jet ski with a well-placed tail swipe is just plain amusing.

But then, I'm a pretty simple guy.

Jaws. Technically inferior, but the raw wickedness and anti-hero appeal will make it a must-have for certain gamers (including me!) I'm not really a sadistic person, but there's something about "being the shark" that compels me. Must... Bite... Everything!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/07