Play as a ravenous shark during a feeding frenzy in Hungry Shark World.  Swim in 2-D space as you gobble up all manner of fish and even humans!  So it’s like a more violent version of Ecco the Dolphin.  It’s available to download on PS4 and Xbox One, and I think it started out as a mobile title, but it’s reviewed on PS4 here.

Swim around in all directions with the d-pad, and you can press the face buttons to dash, attack, and check your map once you find it.  You must keep your health up by eating as many fish as you can.  If you come across another predator or even a human, you can press and hold the attack button to chomp on them for a little bit before swallowing them whole.  The game is over when you run out of health, which can happen if you don’t continuously eat (you’ll starve), or if you hit too many obstacles like water mines, toxic waste, other predators, or poisonous creatures like jellyfish or zebra turkey fish.

At the end of your run, the game will tally up your score and you might level up.  By eating certain gold fish, you can unlock and buy items to equip to your shark, like clothes.  These accessories also will give you status and score boosts, too.  You’ll start out with only one kind of shark, but if you complete all the missions as that animal, you can unlock another shark and the cycle repeats.  Unlock enough sharks and you can get big enough to crash through certain blockades underwater and unlock new areas to swim and eat in.

The game does have a few problems, though.  It’s hard to tell what things are harmful to you until it’s too late.  As this game was originally a mobile title, the progress is slow and it’ll take a long time to unlock items and sharks.  It’s especially frustrating when the missions require you to wear a certain item, and you don’t know how or when you’ll unlock it.  And some items you can only get if you sign up for Ubisoft’s game account.  What might’ve “worked” on a mobile device doesn’t always necessarily translate as well to consoles.  It’s a shame the developers didn’t think about this when porting it to them.

Kid Factor:

Hungry Shark World is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Violence and Blood & Gore.  If it’s one thing I’ve learned about kids is that they’re fascinated by sharks, but there are some things about the game you should know first.  You can chomp down on other fish, biting some of them in half.  You can even chomp on humans, too.  You don’t sever them, but they do scream out silly things like “I don’t wanna die, brah” in a surfer voice before you swallow them whole.  Puffs of blood can also be seen in the water when you eat something or get hit, but you can turn the blood off in the options screen.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers might get bored and/or frustrated at the repetitive gameplay.

Tags: Game Reviews