Maneater

Maneater works by turning the shark into the point of view and the joke at once, so it mostly attracts players who want a power fantasy with splashes of dark comedy. By our assessment, its best idea is the simple one: grow bigger, eat more, and keep unlocking new ways to rampage through coastal water and shallow open areas. The catch is that the combat and mission structure stay fairly lightweight, so the novelty matters more than the systems underneath it. In practice it is the kind of game that feels funniest when it is being knowingly silly, and less impressive when the loop starts to show. Against other action games it sits in the arcade, spectacle-first corner rather than the serious survival lane. That makes it a good pick for anyone after a compact, oddball romp, not for players who want mechanical depth.