Jaws

The shark from Jaws isn’t a bad idea for a video game villain. He’s big, he’s tough, and he likes to eat people, which is always an evil plus. Even the idea of hunting him through the deep expanse of the ocean sounds like the potential for good gaming. The problem is that this hunt is the entire game, resulting in a short arcade-like challenge that gets artificially drawn out by an increasingly ridiculous difficulty level.

You’re asked to seek out and slay the Great White – the game calls the shark “Jaws” in a faux pas similar to calling the monster “Frankenstein.” You start with a boat, some diving gear, and a Level 1 speargun. You must earn better and better equipment to survive encounters, jumping into the water and shooting Mr. Jaws with progressively better spears until you can drop his life bar completely. After multiple encounters finally drain him, you’ll chase him down and stab him with the front of your boat, as in Jaws: The Revenge. It may not be a very good plan, but it is a plan.

Graphically, Jaws presents you with a colorful overhead view of the sea, and a suitable little boat icon for your position. There are some nice underwater scenes with deep blue ocean that turns lighter the closer you get to shore. The shark himself is appropriately large and menacing, and his classic theme is recreated well in NES form. Some good “diving” tunes round out the audio.

You’ll spend most of your time puttering around the map in your boat, trying to avoid the swimming fin of your prey, and waiting for the randomized announcement that you’ve “hit something.” Unlike most times you hit something with a boat, this is good. It means you’ve found a fishing spot, so you’ll dive out and enter a side view. You’re locked into an area the size of one screen, and must avoid and spear jellyfish (which move vertically), manta rays (which move horizontally), plus little sharks that chase you. Any fish can drop items when shot – either shells or extra points. Shells act as money, while points add to your high score.

You’ll stay stuck in this diving screen until you spear a randomly-decided number of sea creatures, after which you’ll automatically return to the boat. Should you actually hit the shark himself, or should he just decide to show up in one of your other diving adventures, he will chase you lazily from alternating sides of the screen. You can slow his charge by pumping him full of spears of any power level, but he’s still amazingly easy to dodge no matter what. Really, the only time he will ever get you killed is if he routes you into one of the other deadly sea critters.

You trade shells for upgrades at the two harbors on the map. These include more powerful spears, a “Jaws tracker,” and a mini-submarine that gives some protection when diving. Collecting enough points gives you access to a minigame where you bomb jellyfish from an airplane. Who knows why, but you’ll get half the number of exploded jellyfish paid out to you in shells. The obvious intent here is to hunt and trade until you’re strong enough to take on those great white teeth – who, I should add, are still coming after you the whole time.

But this is the whole game; perhaps a total of 30 minutes of content. Even back then, companies obviously preferred that you buy the game over renting it, and who would buy a game that lasts 30 minutes? So, difficulty ramps up to the extreme. The sea starts to fill with more and more creatures at once, Jaws gets faster and harder to dodge, you start encountering more and more of the random “hit something” events – even when you just want to make it to harbor to dump off the mass of shells you already have.

And finally, here’s the killer – you don’t have any health yourself. If you get tagged by the Big Guy or any sea creature, you lose ALL of the powerups you earned and half of the shells you were carrying. Essentially, you’re back to starting the game over again, but while retaining the increased numbers of enemies.

You have three lives, but you start at such an enormous disadvantage after dying – especially if you’re pretty far into it – that it makes no sense to continue. So, pretty much, you have one shot in which to nail the game perfectly,  which will indeed take a hell of a lot longer than 30 minutes. Whether you’ll want to put up with it, however, is doubtful.

The Good

Not a terrible way to make a Jaws game, in concept.

The Bad

You’ll take more damage from everything else in the sea than the shark itself. Takes a while to build up enough power to scratch him.