There is something evil in the ocean waters around Amity Island. Something has been feeding off of the marine life and the summer swimming crowd as well. The beaches were once covered in golden sand and full of tourists on their summer vacations, but now the shores are awash in blood. The local residents have put together a reward for anyone that can bring the creature in and now the waters are full of hunters and trappers looking to catch.....YOU! That's right you’re not the hero in this one, in fact your nothing more than a twenty foot, four ton, killing machine that does nothing more than swim and eat! You are a great white shark and you are the hunted in Jaws Unleashed!

Based off of the classic movie Jaws, Jaws Unleashed puts you in the water and behind the teeth as you take on the role of the famous great white shark. But does it succeed or sink into the briny deep with many other film based games? Well a little of both.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a huge shark mark, so when I this game came out, I couldn't wait to get a hold of it. But I also know the kind of stigma surrounding a game like this, so I waited a bit before plunking down $30 and decided to rent it for a week instead for $5 and for once in my life, patience paid off for me.

First let me give this game some credit. It has smooth graphics, great detail and even better gore. The water is always turning red and there was at no time a shortage of victims to be had. Also the developers did an excellent job in devising a game idea and game play around being a great white shark and if you really think about it, that's a tall order to fill without the game getting boring in about two minutes.

The shark also has some sweet ass attacks, more than just biting, although I have to admit the fact that you are playing a shark and one of your basic controls is BITE is fun in itself. But Jaws not only gets to bite he gets to tail whip, jump and ram to his and your delight. But one of the best parts of this game was trying to eat swimmers without being noticed by anyone else. Like a real shark, your fin and water disturbances give you away, so you have to be sneaky at times. If the water is deep enough you can go under a swimmer and perform a drag action where you grab them by the feet and tug them under enough where no one sees you shred their bodies to pieces. I found myself doing this just to see if I would get caught. The game also allows you to go into "Shark Vision" which gives you a shark view attitude and lets you target not only objects but certain body parts as well, once again very nifty ideas that work really well.

Along the way you get to smash docks, boats, shark cages and many other sea going items. I did play a few kind of WTF missions where you had to go do a certain thing to advance in the game, but I was able to overlook most of them. So far the review sounds pretty good right? And I have to admit the game is kind of a mix of Grand Theft Auto and Echo the Dolphin, so where does it go wrong? Read on.

What kills this game and I mean KILLS this game is the terrible, no horrible, no heinous camera views. As long as your swimming forward your OK, but the minute you try to turn in any other direction your taking the game into uncharted water. I can't tell you how many times I got stuck on a reef or in a wrecked ship, because the game camera gets stuck and you cannot change the view, which brings in the usual hit reset and start over motion. If you miss your intended target on the first try, good luck on getting a second chance without swimming a mile off and circling back around and the few times in the game when you have multiple attackers forget it, you'll be belly up before you find your second assailant.

If Jaws Unleashed had a better camera system this game could have been outstanding, but the fact is simply this, the shoddy and horrible camera design ruin this game and make it frustrating and nearly unplayable at times, which is a shame, because the game had some really good intentions.

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