Maneater 2 Looks Like A Dang Hoot (FYI, The Shark Can Wallrun Now)

We've come to expect a certain caliber of game from Sony State of Play: high production value, high artistic value. The trailers ran the gamut from Wolverine to a major expansion for Ghost of Yotei to an extended look at Final Fantasy 7 Resonance. All of these games look serious and expensive and artistic. They're the types of games for us Serious Gamers (™) who play Serious Games (™). Even the surprise appearance of Double Fine's Keeper is a showcase of a beautiful and artistically ambitious game. That may be why seeing Maneater 2, an action-RPG where you play as an angry and vengeful shark, felt so refreshing. The first Maneater was a silly concept that managed to squeeze out more depth than I expected. As a baby shark, you see your mother brutally killed by a reality-TV shark hunter named Scaly Pete, so you devote your whole shark life to growing bigger and stronger. It's an old-school revenge fantasy with a twist--that twist being that the entire game takes place underwater, because you're a shark. So the game loop was simplistic but enjoyable: Chomp down on increasingly dangerous and larger predators to gain valuable proteins and fats and grow bigger, as well as occasionally …