Jaws Unleashed [PS2]

In the film Jaws, the horrific hook was uncertainty. We didn't know where the shark was or what it was thinking. Humans on the surface trying to fight the shark underwater were like Karate Champ characters trying to compete in Tekken; 2D entities out of their depth in a boundless 3D space.

So, ignoring even the most basic analysis of what made the film work, here's Jaws Unleashed, the game in which You Are The SHARK, as the trailer proclaims. A description like "Grand Theft Auto with sharks" is fairly apt, as the game features missions in which the shark (is it really named Jaws? We're going with "the shark") swims about chomping swimmers, the coast guard, and other sea creatures. It even uses keycards to open doors! Sadly, we haven't yet found the bit where the player is shark-jacked by a gang of remoras.

When controlling a giant shark, you don't expect precision. While Jaws dispenses with most of the laws of nature, it does stick to basic physics. So momentum and mass conspire against the shark whenever it's time to attack. Granted, since the water is a 3D space, every victim is potentially a straight line away. But deviate only slightly and you'll overshoot every target, then have to slowly maneuver the shark's cumbersome form back into striking position.

A basic adherence to shark biology might also have made the game more interesting. Specifically, the shark in the game can sit still indefinitely and suffer no ill effect (boredom aside), while in reality, sharks must constantly move to draw oxygen from the water. The game sidesteps this with a hunger meter that steadily drains, eventually draining health when the hunger pangs get too severe. That provides a bare measure of tension, but since even small fish can provide sustenance, the game is lacking a real propulsive force.

In fact, there's nothing here that resembles nature. The shark can hover in water, leap onto land for brief moments, and tear apart piers and boats like they were made of people. New attacks can be purchased to make the beast even more supernatural. Sadly there's so similar upgrade for the human AI, which is set to have most humans be either unwitting cattle or screaming fools.