SHARK! SHARK! Review | TheXboxHub

Republished By Plato

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There are upsides and downsides to being the go-to reviewer here at TheXboxHub for anything fishing related. Sure, I get to play all the latest and greatest fishing games, but then every now and then other games slip through the net (see what I did there?) and end up in my lap.

Such a game is the latest one to come from BBG Entertainment – SHARK! SHARK!.

shark shark review 1 — SHARK! SHARK! SHARK!

Now, overlooking the needlessly shouty title, the game itself is said to be inspired by the game of the same name. First released in 1982, it has apparently been inducted into the National Game Registry in the United States Congress Library; a heady claim indeed! Not bad for a game I’ve never heard of on a console I never owned!

So, I guess we need to dive in and see if the time is ripe for a remake, don’t we?

Normally at this point in the review, a narrative would be discussed, but as there isn’t one in SHARK! SHARK! I can pretty much gloss over it. We are a small fish, in a big ocean, and the only way to survive is to eat anything smaller than we are, and avoid being eaten by anything larger. That is the sum total of our motivation, and while survival is a pretty strong motive, it is going to be a tall order.

Presentation of the game is pretty nice, all things considered. The action is viewed from a side-on perspective, and each one of the twelve levels works as its own discrete screen, with varying amounts of natural hazards to try and avoid. These range from a giant octopus that covers the screen in ink to a moray eel that attacks from the side. There’s certainly enough to keep you on your toes.

The fish and creatures are all nicely drawn and animated, except for the titular shark, who has the ability to not only reverse direction instantly, but is also able to pivot on an axis that is completely out of kilter for what a real shark can do. I mean, I realise they don’t have bones or anything, but spinning almost 360 degrees on its own axis is something else. Play the game, you’ll see what I mean, as it is really hard to explain.

shark shark review 2 — It all looks nice enough

Sound is pretty good as well, with the chomping of little fish being counterpointed by the sharks, who have learned to growl (no, really). The music on the levels is very nice however, helping to calm things down when the bloody shark just won’t leave you alone. Believe me, it won’t ever leave you alone.

And it’s about now we get the gameplay and the first thing to say is that there are an awful lot of ways to play the game. Voyage mode is the single player mode (that can be played in multiplayer, confusingly) while there are also Versus, Multiplayer and High Score modes to try out as well. Versus mode is for local play, with your mates on the couch, while multiplayer can also drag people in from the internet to play with you. I have tested this mode with our erstwhile editor, and while he lost (as expected) the gameplay on my side (being the host) was nice and smooth. The problem is, he was reporting lag spikes as he tried to swim. There aren’t enough people online to test any further, so it may be a game of two halves. Just be aware, if you don’t have a friend with the game, you’ll struggle to play SHARK! SHARK! Online.

High Score mode is another oddity – after booting into the mode and being determined to see what I can do, the game refused to spawn my little fish and so is basically unplayable. It happened multiple times, so I’m guessing there is an issue with the mode? Still, the rest of the modes work well, so we’ll gloss over that.

shark shark review 3 — Good luck in getting some 4-player action on the go

However you play, the basic gameplay loop boils down to eating all the fish you can, with the hitting of a magic number required in order for you to get taken to the next level in Voyage mode. That does assume you can avoid the shark and all the other hazards long enough. And sadly this seems to be impossible.

SHARK! SHARK! isn’t massively long – there are three levels with four stages each, and after you reach the end, that’s it! Still, the achievements are nice and easy to get, apart from the ones relating to playing online matches. With how dead the online world is, and with how long games take to play (no options for duration here, or ability to turn off the eating of team mates) playing twenty-five online games is going to be tricky.

But what else is wrong with SHARK! SHARK!? Well, that can very much be summed up in one sentence – “Why can’t we outswim the shark?”.

With the addition of a dodge or dash button, the game would be a lot more playable and a hell of a lot more fun. I’m sure there wasn’t one in the original game, but here, the shark is like a damp Terminator – it absolutely will not stop, will not show mercy and won’t leave you alone until it has eaten you. You can get revenge – by biting the shark’s tail, you can gradually kill it – but it is a very tough road to walk (or swim). With just a little dash, you could stop being herded into a corner, eaten and then made to be small again.

shark shark review 4 — We love the Clown fish. We hate the shark.

Apart from the implacable shark, the rest of the game is pretty good fun. If you can somehow find friends to play with, it is even more so. There’s nothing better than eating your friends when they are starting to build a lead in the points stakes, as it really brings them back to earth with a bump.

SHARK! SHARK! is a tough one to rate. There is fun to be had, right up to the point where the shark appears on the screen and ruins your whole run. However, not being able to dash or dodge feels like a missed opportunity, and this one little change would transform the game. There doesn’t seem to be much of an online player base either, and seeing as the single player game is pretty short, in all, it is a tough sell.