You. Are. The Shark.
Jaws Unleashed is a video game developed by Appaloosa Interactive and released on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC, based on the Jaws film franchise. You get to play as the big bad Great White itself, who chomps its way through sea life, humans, and their constructions.
Though it received mixed reviews, it was a commercial success, selling over 250,000 copies on Xbox alone, and is still fondly remembered by those who played it when it came out, hailed as one of the best games where you get to control a predator.
A sequel Jaws: Ultimate Predator was released in 2011 for the 3DS and Wii, while another, Jaws: Revenge was made by Rebellion and released for mobile devices.
For a similar game on iOS, see Hungry Shark Evolution.
The 2020 open-world shark game, Maneater, was inspired by Unleashed and oft considered its Spiritual Successor.
Examples in this game:
- Big Bad: The shark is both this and the protagonist for the story.
- Big Damn Heroes: When you destroy Michael Brody's boat, Cruz Raddock, the shark hunter employed by Environplus arrives on a helicopter to save him.
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: Things that you eat have more blood in them than it's possible.
- Derelict Graveyard: There's a lagoon filled with sunken ships.
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: Not just the humans and their machines, but it seems like every other creature in the sea wants you dead. Goes into
Fridge Logic territory when you see comparatively tiny sand sharks and stingrays going out of their way to suicidally attack a massive 35-foot great white. - Exploding Barrels: You can throw barrels to this effect.
- Eye Scream: You have to bite out the giant squid's eyes during the fight against it.
- Giant Squid: Story mission nine starts off fighting one.
- Gorn: Jaws Unleashed contains large amounts of blood and gore. Guts spill out of people you bite, heads can be seen floating in the water, etc. Jaws Revenge goes for the more understated red mist style, but it's still not for the squeamish.
- Gotta Catch Them All: The tin cans and license plates.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: You can make boats explode by throwing people at them.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: The fight with the killer whale ends with the shark biting it in half in mid-air.
- Harpoon Gun: Some divers will attack you with these.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Once again, Amity is celebrating Fourth of July.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: You regain health by eating anything living in sight.
- "Jaws" First-Person Perspective: The Shark Vision.
- Made of Explodium: Any machine that you destroy.
- Made of Iron: The shark can survive several explosive barrels and contact mines before dying if it begins at full health.
- Natural Weapon: Naturally. You can smash objects with your tail or bite with your teeth.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: You will face saltwater crocodiles.
- No One Could Survive That!: When the Environplus' underwater facility explodes, the shark is assumed to be dead.
- Piranha Problem: You'll have to face them as the shark in the aquarium stages.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: During the second story mode mission, the mayor attempts to put a stop to the shark problem by having his men capture the Great White and sending it to Amity's aquarium with the intent of keeping it in captivity. The shark manages to escape, of course.
- Sea Mine: You have navigate through these in the seventh story mission.
- Shark Tunnel: You get to destroy these in the second story mission.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the bosses is a Killer Whale. It may or may not be a reference to the 1977 film Orca: The Killer Whale, which was a Jaws knockoff, veering it into Take That! territory.
- The boss battle against the Giant Squid might be both a Shout-Out and a Take That! to Beast, a novel written by Jaws author Peter Benchley about a huge squid.
- The seventh level with its sea mines is very reminiscent of a scene in Finding Nemo.
- Spin Attack: One of the unlockable special moves.
- Threatening Shark: What did you expect?
- The End... Or Is It?: After the final boss battle, Brody, who's aboard a Coast Guard helicopter, drops a bomb into the devastation zone to make sure the shark didn't survive. As the helicopter heads off, a familiar dorsal fin pokes out of the water and begins to follow...
- Under the Sea: Enforced by the fact that the player character is a fish.
- Underwater Base: You destroy one during the ninth story mission.
- Underwater Boss Battle: The fights against orca and the giant squid.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Where do we begin?
- You can rip apart men, women and children alike, attacking them as they scream bloody murder.
- You can rip apart other aquatic life, while they try their damnedest to get away.
- You can throw people back on the beach and watch them explode in a bloody mist.
- Villain Protagonist: The sharks who tend to be the Big Bads of the films.
- Walking Swimsuit Scene: Plenty of female characters in the game are in swimwear, including bikinis. The game is set near areas where there are beaches and water, obviously, so it's unsurprising.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Believe it or not, the shark itself. Throughout the game, you're going out of your way to destroy threats to the environment, from toxic waste dumps to a whole underwater facility. Thus making the shark a form of Gaia's Vengeance.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: The whole ocean is your playground.
Examples in Ultimate Predator
- Big Bad Ensemble: Paleo Co consisting of its two antagonists, Jeremiah Batstone and Trey Wallace.
- Cel Shading: The game is done in this style.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Believe it or not, the shark was shocked and even saddened when Dr. Danleau's was killed by Wallace. It's even implied it made its personal mission to kill Wallace to avenge the deceased doctor.
- Expy: Trey Wallace seems to be based on Sam Quint from the original Jaws film except the former lacks the noble and heroic qualities of the latter.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Batstone was killed when his genetically-engineered Megalodon smashes against the facility he was inside in.
- Wallace fires his rocket launcher at the shark only for the shark to lure the rocket back onto his boat.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: You get to face aquatic dinosaurs and a giant crocodile.
- Superior Successor: The shark triumphs over his Megaladon ancestor after Outrun the Fireball.
- Token Good Teammate: Jacques Danleau is the one who didn't know about Batstone's insane plan and is the only one who felt genuine sympathy for the sea creatures.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Paleo Co is very much beloved by everyone around the world. Unbeknownst to them, they are insane group of Eco-terrrorists who would condemn humanity to death in order to preserve the oceans.
Examples in Revenge
- Deadly Lunge: Inverted with the bikini-clad girl swimmers, who will quickly pick up in speed once you approach them, which makes eating them slightly more difficult.
- Exploding Barrels: The hostile helicopters will drop exploding mines down at you.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: The shark's bulk will do once you attack them enough times.
- Super Mode: The shark can enter one after eating enough stuff, which turns the edges of the screen blood-red, makes it practically invulnerable to damage and lets it jump high enough to destroy (relatively) high-flying planes.
