Based on the movie, this game is flawed. If you've seen the movie, you will know that the on-screen time of the big rubber shark is pretty minimal anyway, so basing a game on the shark from Jaws was probably going to lead to a very very short game.

When I first saw the game, I thought this was going to be a pretty poor game (as most movie based games are). Regardless of this, I plodded on and booted the game up. After a quick tutorial lesson, I got to grips with the game, and I started finding it enjoyable. The menu at the start of the game really looks shoddily done, but fits in with the Jaws theme OK. In fact, I was surprised they kept the original danger music in there.. I have no idea why, but I was expecting to hear something which isn't from Jaws.


"I'm gonna eat that hairy leg.."

The controls are a bit complicated at first, but with time, they were pretty easy to master. As you progress through the game, you get more points allowing you to upgrade your abilities, which is where my first problem comes in... Why the hell does this shark have "abilities"?...

Anyway, after the Tutorial comes the first level. Now, the first level itself isn't too bad, but once again they change the Jaws story to suit it's purpose. Jaws is captured in a large tank... After a terrible voice acting performance with no emotion what so ever, the level begins. Now, this is another problem I had... I know Jaws was supposed to be intelligent, but where the hell did he learn to use electronic key cards? I checked the movie script, the movie itself, and I even asked around... Jaws just isn't that smart. I know Sharks are in schools but this is taking schools a little too literally. This isn't the only time when Jaws is stupidly smart either, but I wont give away anymore.. If you want to find out, buy this game, or at the very least, rent it if you fancy keeping your money.

After this level, things slow down and you're able to swim an a free-roam ocean around the island. Whilst it's nice to be able to swim around, devouring boats and chubby kids, the free-roam ocean is only there to extend the life of a really short game.

There are dozens of things to do in the ocean, from collecting treasure chests, collecting licence plates, eating other sea animals, and doing side quests, but unfortunately, these are only there to make the game last longer.

Remember how everyone kept saying " Oh, The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker is boring because there's a massive ocean which takes forever to get across"? Yeah well that rule applies. The lack of storyline for Jaws means some exciting new adventures had to be thought up to give him more play time, and even then, there aren't many levels. You find you have to swim half way around the island to do the next story mission, just to swim back for the next level. As a result, you fill the void with a few side quests. Result? I don't think so.. It's very easy to get bored with this game. It appears to me that they just decided to slap the 'Jaws' label on this game in order to sell a few copies.

They tried to make this game last as long as possible by giving the player 100s of opportunities that aren't at all necessary for the game, such as ability boosts, new moves, loads of side quests (in addition to different difficulties for those side quests), and loads of collectable items in massive quantities, but this does NOT constitute good game play. Remove all the extensive crap from the game and you have a game you can easily complete within an hour.

The graphics for a sixth generation console are actually very good. Given the large environment, the game doesn't seem to suffer either. The little people who Jaws can eat are a little PS1 era, but I guess this is just for scaling and resource saving purposes. Limbs can fly off other sea animals and people, and the game is nice and gory being filled with blood. The blood isn't especially well done, but it's nice to see a game with blood gushing out of every orifice from time to time. Granted, this is an 18 rated game, and I would expect nothing less than to see lots of blood which will get a shark high like it's on crack.


"Fishermen haven't quite got the hang of holding guns properly yet.."

As I've previously stated, the vocal work really is terrible. It lacks any real emotion making the conversations seem really 2D and stupid.
Another stupid part is how it randomly plays danger music, even when nothing is around you, this is probably to remind you that you ARE playing a shark, and that sharks eat fat kids on rafts who are stranded out at sea, or a boat with some frat boys who are taking advantage of some under aged chicks, because frat boys are stupid and always end up dead in films...

Overall? I think this game is a miss... If you like collecting Jaws memorabilia then perhaps you'd pick this up and then just leave it in the original sealed packaging, otherwise I think this is a game I could do without in my collection.

Storyline: Way too far off the original, so I'm going to have to give this a 5/10
Game Play: Enough was there to keep me interested in playing until the end, despite how short the game is. 6/10
Graphics: Surprisingly good for a PS2 game, but not up to par with other graphical wonders that are on the PS2 today. 6/10
Sound: Terrible. 4/10
Lifespan: It looks like a lot of collectables were added because the game was too short. This seems like lazy, rushed work to me: 3/10






Oh, when will they learn?
Attention all video games development studios..

Take a lesson from Professor Hatrix.

Movies + Games = Disaster.