Time to review a mobile game because like any normal person who has a job and life I can't be expected to be capable of playing triple A games back to back and still manage to get these review out on this. This one is to let me catch my breath and actually have some time to play other games that need a bit more time from me.
Hungry Shark Evolution has to be one of the better mobile games I've played. It has a concept that for the most part is unique, its executed beautifully on a technical level and it doesn't take itself to seriously. This isn't to say that it doesn't suffer from the problems that other mobile games have, its just that the content is strong enough for me to forgive a lot more than I normally would from the development and publishing teams. The people who are responsible for developing and publishing Hungry Shark Evolution are Future Games of London an indie studio founded in 2009 to focus exclusively on free to play mobile games and has as of 2013 been acquired by industry behemoth Ubisoft. The game as I'm sure you have guessed in exclusive to mobiles but is available on both Android and Apple phones.
The gameplay mechanics in the game are beautifully simple. The core of the game has you use your finger to direct the shark in any direction you want and as he comes into contract with viable targets they are gobbled up. If it was just that though, I don't think the game would have held my attention. The targets, that are other marine animals, are for the part not sitting around waiting to be eaten. They are going to attempt to dodge your mouth in a number of ways such as out swimming you, jumping out of the water and sometimes hiding behind hazardous objects which in turn makes it feel like a hunt and adds a level of excitement to the action taking place in the game. Not all of the creates are going to run away though, some are going to come right at you with the objective of turning you into their next meal and reminding you where you place is within the food chain. Yet again more tension and excitement is added due to this making the game a more compelling experience. Aside from this basic gameplay the game has missions for you to follow and even boss fights adding a sense of progressing and closure to top everything off.
The meta game in Hungry Shark Evolution is also something that I enjoy. You start off the game as a tiny Reef Shark and as you play games you grow in size until you can jump become a Mako Shark where the process is repeated a few more times. What I enjoyed in this evolution system was that the different sharks aside from being stronger than one another had deeper depths levels they could swim to as well as a large field of pray. This meant that are you grew and became stronger you could explore new areas of the map there were not available to you before and you could attempt to eat creates that you would actively run away from before. This gradual progression makes you feel like you are doing something and sets the game at a pace that allows you to really enjoy and appreciate the new freedoms you get as you move up from one shark to another.
The game isn't a high tension experience though, at least not for the most part, its actually really relaxing. Although it seemed familiar I could not place it at first, a friend of mine did once I showed him the game. This game feels a lot like Ecco the Dolphin a game that was published in 1992 by Sega on the Mega Drive. Yes, you are a more vicious carnivore now, but for the most part the game does feel the same. The game is also a much brighter and more aural experience. At times I genuinely found myself lost in the background as I swam around in the game entirely captivated by the colorful coral or the various sunken objects as I came across them for the first time and I giggled like a little school girl as I munched down on fat tourists as they sat around drinking while they floating in the ocean on tubes.
Hungry Shark Evolution does have problems though. Due to its free to play nature the developers have to generate their income through ads and micro transactions. The ads come in the form of thirty to forty five second commercial that are unskippable with the "X" markers to close the commercial actually being placed in a different location each time, meaning you could cause yourself to go through the commercial again because they baited you into clicking the reply button by mistake. The micro transactions themselves don't feel to pushy actually, but there are some aspects build into the normal game that are clearly there to control you sessions. The first feeds off the games mechanic that has your life constantly draining, which isn't bad at all on its own, but as time goes on in the game the drain start to pick up pace until around the fifteenth minute where its becomes really difficult to keep up with. The game also does have a shelf life with it losing its appeal as you become stronger and stronger to the point where you can essentially eat anything and everything on the map and you become so fast that the map start to feel smaller and smaller.
These negatives are more of a fly in the soup kind of thing as opposed to major flaws in the games design. The core product at offer here is just to fun to resist since, when for the most part the down sides can be ignored entirely. So, while it doesn't have the infinite play value that some games do, its still a great game. Now, get going and live out your fantasies and fears are some far, far worse than the shark in Jaws.
The gameplay mechanics in the game are beautifully simple. The core of the game has you use your finger to direct the shark in any direction you want and as he comes into contract with viable targets they are gobbled up. If it was just that though, I don't think the game would have held my attention. The targets, that are other marine animals, are for the part not sitting around waiting to be eaten. They are going to attempt to dodge your mouth in a number of ways such as out swimming you, jumping out of the water and sometimes hiding behind hazardous objects which in turn makes it feel like a hunt and adds a level of excitement to the action taking place in the game. Not all of the creates are going to run away though, some are going to come right at you with the objective of turning you into their next meal and reminding you where you place is within the food chain. Yet again more tension and excitement is added due to this making the game a more compelling experience. Aside from this basic gameplay the game has missions for you to follow and even boss fights adding a sense of progressing and closure to top everything off.
The meta game in Hungry Shark Evolution is also something that I enjoy. You start off the game as a tiny Reef Shark and as you play games you grow in size until you can jump become a Mako Shark where the process is repeated a few more times. What I enjoyed in this evolution system was that the different sharks aside from being stronger than one another had deeper depths levels they could swim to as well as a large field of pray. This meant that are you grew and became stronger you could explore new areas of the map there were not available to you before and you could attempt to eat creates that you would actively run away from before. This gradual progression makes you feel like you are doing something and sets the game at a pace that allows you to really enjoy and appreciate the new freedoms you get as you move up from one shark to another.
The game isn't a high tension experience though, at least not for the most part, its actually really relaxing. Although it seemed familiar I could not place it at first, a friend of mine did once I showed him the game. This game feels a lot like Ecco the Dolphin a game that was published in 1992 by Sega on the Mega Drive. Yes, you are a more vicious carnivore now, but for the most part the game does feel the same. The game is also a much brighter and more aural experience. At times I genuinely found myself lost in the background as I swam around in the game entirely captivated by the colorful coral or the various sunken objects as I came across them for the first time and I giggled like a little school girl as I munched down on fat tourists as they sat around drinking while they floating in the ocean on tubes.
Hungry Shark Evolution does have problems though. Due to its free to play nature the developers have to generate their income through ads and micro transactions. The ads come in the form of thirty to forty five second commercial that are unskippable with the "X" markers to close the commercial actually being placed in a different location each time, meaning you could cause yourself to go through the commercial again because they baited you into clicking the reply button by mistake. The micro transactions themselves don't feel to pushy actually, but there are some aspects build into the normal game that are clearly there to control you sessions. The first feeds off the games mechanic that has your life constantly draining, which isn't bad at all on its own, but as time goes on in the game the drain start to pick up pace until around the fifteenth minute where its becomes really difficult to keep up with. The game also does have a shelf life with it losing its appeal as you become stronger and stronger to the point where you can essentially eat anything and everything on the map and you become so fast that the map start to feel smaller and smaller.
These negatives are more of a fly in the soup kind of thing as opposed to major flaws in the games design. The core product at offer here is just to fun to resist since, when for the most part the down sides can be ignored entirely. So, while it doesn't have the infinite play value that some games do, its still a great game. Now, get going and live out your fantasies and fears are some far, far worse than the shark in Jaws.
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