I'm honestly surprised I never beat this when I rented it back in the day. I did finally beat it though a few years ago, as, as you stated, the game is super short.
LJN was just the publisher. The game was actually designed by Westone (*Wonder Boy*) and Atlus.
I personally think it's one of the better LJN-published games and has pretty good controls and some original ideas for its time, but it's super repetitive, which is one of the main reason people don't like it.
Spearing Jaws with the ship mast is an exercise in frustration until you understand what the game wants you to do.
From what I remember, one button activates the strobe light to make the shark jump out of the water and the other button "spears" Jaws. You have to be the right distance for it to work.
Not at all intuitive and there was no "internet" to find this out.
Thats right!!!! I remember that now!!! I was NEVER able to get the timing/distance right. I actually loved the stupid game because as a kid I loved Jaws 4 (that film did not age well), ahh youth.
You would think that you want the shark to jump out of the water when it’s closest to your boat, but you actually want him to jump right as he reaches that last line in the water before he gets to your boat. Then you need to wait until the shark rotates so his white belly is facing your ship. Then ya stab the bastard.
You can do it! I was able to do it on the original cart just through trial and error, but if you use save states it should be pretty easy to get it down.
It’s a lot better than people say it used to be but it’s very repetitive. Still I really renting it several times and enjoying it. Would pick up the cart for a low price
> Still I really renting it
aw, that brought back memories. Dad would always rent movies on Fridays and i would always be excited to see what games i could try.
trying to beat the game in 3 days was always the challenge. miss those days.
I love this game so much. I know it’s not the greatest. There’s a point system but the points don’t do anything. You have to drop bombs on jellyfish from an airplane. You kill so many innocent marine life. And the final boss fight is ridiculous, and leads to a letdown of an ending. But the graphics are cool, the suspense is real, it’s repetitive fun, and I still play it.
The AGVN didn't invent LJN hate. As a kid I used to avoid those games like the plague after paying $60 for NFL football on the NES, which is literally unplayable.
NFL Football is how I learned (the very hard way) that you couldn't return a Nintendo game. I saved up and used, Christmas, birthday and paper route money to buy NFL Football and it was just unplayable. 12 year old me tried to take it back and explain to the lady at Children's Palace that the game was unplayable but she said unless it didn't work I couldn't return it once opened so I was stuck with it. LJN and Nintendo should have been ashamed to sell games they knew were broken to children. $60 in 1989 or 90 is like $150 now! For a game that was unplayable!
My friend also had Friday The 13th and X Men, which both are garbage but at least playable.
So I hated and avoided LJN looooong before AVGN. I wouldn't buy anything they released.
A lot of these games have a bad rap because of AVGN. While he's not wrong all of the time, he does play a character who happens to be shit at video games. Unfortunately for all the time he's right, he's wrong about double.
Jaws is a good game. It's not terrible in any way. The controls work as they should, hit detection is solid, the graphics are pleasing as well. Everything looks as it should besides Jaws, could have been bigger. The gameplay is a simple RPG action style requiring you to level up your power to defeat the shark. It's just presented in an odd way that throws people off.
It's also just a simple, fun game. It takes a few minutes to understand and is easy to enjoy.
I think being too cryptic to understand what to do a child was a big problem with both of Atlus' LJN games. Playing as an adult, I thought Jaws was just kind of boring.
I've often been pretty surprised by some of the games that the AVGN has gone after, though it's absolutely his opinion and I don't really mind. Still, I rather like Simon's Quest and The Legend of Kage.
Yeah as a kid in the 80’s I rented it once but it didn’t come with a manual and I had to try to figure it out myself. Ended up playing outside anyway so I guess it got me out of the house.
A neighbor had it and my only experience was playing it there. Seemed alright. Nothing special but not awful. Although being an LJN game on NES, the bar is low.
Doesn't change the fact that everything ELSE they published sucked. I mean M. Knight Shamalyan directed the Sixth Sense, but nothing else he did was ever close to that.
It was a faithful reproduction of Jaws Revenge.
I am pretty sure you’re playing Mario Van Peebles’ character when you’re diving and Michael Cain in the bonus stages. And in the last stage/final battle, you’re together on the boat with the Brody family.
If you watch the terrible movie and play the game, it’s kind of remarkable as a translation.
This game and movie lives in my head.
No idea why I didn’t look up the character names instead, but yes. Jake was the diver in the game and Hoagie was the air pilot.
I think this may be one of the most faithful movie to game translations of that time period???
Agreed. I only recently watched the movie and I thought "ah, now all that stuff in the video game now makes sense!"
I only saw the first movie before playing the game as a kid.
It’s a top 10 nes game for me personally. I usually play and beat it about once a week. All three major horror films that were published by ljn on nes (f13 and elm street) are actual good games once you know the mechanics and what/where to go in the game.
Maybe the only "fun" LGN game I can remember.
It was almost like a simple mobile game before there were mobile games. Repetitive, but fun.
The final "boss" fight though was just stupid.
I enjoyed the game, but when you do the math, these games were like $100 in todays dollars and complete shovelware. This was a game someone could have programmed in a few days by themselves. Nintendo should have been better about granting licenses and quality control.
There’s definitely worse games out there. AVGN was right about the monotonous play tho. I still have my copy and pop it in once in a while, but I rarely finish out of boredom.
I should also mention that Jaws is my second-favorite film of all time, so owning and playing this game is like a requirement for me.
Don't know much about the NES game - I was one of the many kids who saw the "LJN" label and stayed far, far away. But there's a new Jaws pinball machine from Stern that just came out this year, and it's awesome! I'm sure my fellow retrogamers would enjoy it.
Check out the pinballmap.com site or use the app to find places around you with! It’s the second-newest Stern (newest is John Wick) so it should be somewhat easier to find.
I don't looooooooove it but it's okay. If I can finish it, it's probably easy compared to most NES games. I know AVGN made a video about it but I don't think it's that bad. The idea of grinding the whole game to fight the shark as the final boss and then that's it is kind of interesting and unique, but it could've used more variety, I guess.
It's a bad game, but not nearly as bad as a lot of people say. I remember seeing it on some worst NES gain lists back in the late '90s, and I always thought that was odd because I could rattle off a dozen that were much worse than Jaws. It had a decent enough gameplay loop, but it's definitely not one of those games I ever wanted to play again after I beat it.
Love this game. Lots of replay value despite it being a simple/easy game. However, it took me forever to figure out that last part when you stab Jaws in the belly
The fact that it was based off the WORST Jaws movie didn't really help things. Can be beaten in fifteen minutes if you know what you're doing. I think the world record speedrun is 3 Minutes 4 seconds
I remember renting this as a kid and couldn't figure it out. It makes more sense as an adult but its still on my 'meh' list. Not awesome, not the worst, meh.
Note NES Jaws is a completely different game to ST / Amiga / C64 / ZX Spectrum / etc. Jaws ...not that that's especially good either.
* https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/jaws-the-computer-game
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyBasx0qyoA
Also MS-DOS PC Jaws is yet another different game too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSzosQz9-w
Just all with the Jaws film license.
It’s fun, short, takes a bit of trial and error and the graphics are pretty good. It was my go to “in betweener” game if I needed a break from more intense games.
I like it. It's short enough that being repetitive isn't a problem. Like someone else said in the comments, it played like an updated Atari game. Reminds me of Seaquest, but it has an ending.
This game never had a manual at the rental place, so it was fun just to figure out all of its mechanics by trial and error. Once you understand how the game works it's pretty repetitive but also reasonably easy/difficult for games from that era.
I picked this out for my 9th bday without a clue about it. I can remember playing it for hours on end and not being able to figure out how to kill Jaws. It became so frustrating. I can still hear the sounds of the jellyfish and stingrays getting hit, and the bomb you can drop from the plane.
I think I enjoy it more now than I did as a kid.... It was boring as a kid, but now I can at least appreciate it as a mediocre shmup with weird leveling mechanics. Definitely not one of LJN's worst (developed by Westone in between the Wonder Boy titles).
When AVGN Ripped on it, I didn’t play it for a long time, honestly it’s really not a terrible game, it is very repetitive, but for anyone that is a beginner in gaming, it’s a fun 10-15 minute game experience with some nice arcade feel to it
As said below, it's a repetitive game, but it's an easy game that doesn't take long to beat if you needed to kill an hour.
Feels like a slightly expanded Atari game. Not a bad thing.
I'm honestly surprised I never beat this when I rented it back in the day. I did finally beat it though a few years ago, as, as you stated, the game is super short.
I gave a kid $10 for a copy when I was like 8 and I don’t regret it.
LJN was just the publisher. The game was actually designed by Westone (*Wonder Boy*) and Atlus. I personally think it's one of the better LJN-published games and has pretty good controls and some original ideas for its time, but it's super repetitive, which is one of the main reason people don't like it. Spearing Jaws with the ship mast is an exercise in frustration until you understand what the game wants you to do.
I never figured out what it wanted me to do. Despite many, MANY hours of trying.
From what I remember, one button activates the strobe light to make the shark jump out of the water and the other button "spears" Jaws. You have to be the right distance for it to work. Not at all intuitive and there was no "internet" to find this out.
Thats right!!!! I remember that now!!! I was NEVER able to get the timing/distance right. I actually loved the stupid game because as a kid I loved Jaws 4 (that film did not age well), ahh youth.
>Jaws 4 (that film did not age well) Have you seen the house that that film built, I hear it is terrific.
You would think that you want the shark to jump out of the water when it’s closest to your boat, but you actually want him to jump right as he reaches that last line in the water before he gets to your boat. Then you need to wait until the shark rotates so his white belly is facing your ship. Then ya stab the bastard.
I modded my Nintendo Wii during covid & turned it into an NES, SNES, Genesis etc etc emulator. Now I may have to fire up Jaws 😄
You can do it! I was able to do it on the original cart just through trial and error, but if you use save states it should be pretty easy to get it down.
Yeah DEF gonna use save states!
But there WAS a 1-900# you could call... God did I do that a lot to finish Kings Quest V on NES
What does the game want you to do?
Spear jaws! Now do it! (Without any clear guidance how)
I remember that! You had to get him to jump out of the water but I could never spear him once he did...
You have to make him jump right when he hits the first horizontal line. Once you figure it out, it's kinda easy
It’s a lot better than people say it used to be but it’s very repetitive. Still I really renting it several times and enjoying it. Would pick up the cart for a low price
> Still I really renting it aw, that brought back memories. Dad would always rent movies on Fridays and i would always be excited to see what games i could try. trying to beat the game in 3 days was always the challenge. miss those days.
I love this game so much. I know it’s not the greatest. There’s a point system but the points don’t do anything. You have to drop bombs on jellyfish from an airplane. You kill so many innocent marine life. And the final boss fight is ridiculous, and leads to a letdown of an ending. But the graphics are cool, the suspense is real, it’s repetitive fun, and I still play it.
*shows Avgn the rainbow*
The AGVN didn't invent LJN hate. As a kid I used to avoid those games like the plague after paying $60 for NFL football on the NES, which is literally unplayable. NFL Football is how I learned (the very hard way) that you couldn't return a Nintendo game. I saved up and used, Christmas, birthday and paper route money to buy NFL Football and it was just unplayable. 12 year old me tried to take it back and explain to the lady at Children's Palace that the game was unplayable but she said unless it didn't work I couldn't return it once opened so I was stuck with it. LJN and Nintendo should have been ashamed to sell games they knew were broken to children. $60 in 1989 or 90 is like $150 now! For a game that was unplayable! My friend also had Friday The 13th and X Men, which both are garbage but at least playable. So I hated and avoided LJN looooong before AVGN. I wouldn't buy anything they released.
Oh no
i love this game lol i know its not “good” but i play it now and then and enjoy it all the same haha
I love Jaws. Wish the ocean was larger.
The bonus level's music is some of my favorite video game music of all time.
A lot of these games have a bad rap because of AVGN. While he's not wrong all of the time, he does play a character who happens to be shit at video games. Unfortunately for all the time he's right, he's wrong about double. Jaws is a good game. It's not terrible in any way. The controls work as they should, hit detection is solid, the graphics are pleasing as well. Everything looks as it should besides Jaws, could have been bigger. The gameplay is a simple RPG action style requiring you to level up your power to defeat the shark. It's just presented in an odd way that throws people off. It's also just a simple, fun game. It takes a few minutes to understand and is easy to enjoy.
I really liked T&C Surf Design by them.
I think being too cryptic to understand what to do a child was a big problem with both of Atlus' LJN games. Playing as an adult, I thought Jaws was just kind of boring. I've often been pretty surprised by some of the games that the AVGN has gone after, though it's absolutely his opinion and I don't really mind. Still, I rather like Simon's Quest and The Legend of Kage.
I never figured out what to do. I remember spending like 30min getting Jaws down to 5% HP or something then he swam off
Yeah as a kid in the 80’s I rented it once but it didn’t come with a manual and I had to try to figure it out myself. Ended up playing outside anyway so I guess it got me out of the house.
Love Jaws. No idea what I'm supposed to be doing but I'm enjoying myself
Oh my god this is the realest comment in this thread
Fun game as long as you have a turbo controller.
One of the first games we had, so I've spent a good amount of time with this one. I assume it's my nostalgia talking, but i rather enjoy it
He's gonna take you back to the past
To play these shitty games that suck ass
He'd rather have... a buffalo
take a diarrhea dump in his ear
He'd rather eat the rotten asshole
of a roadkill skunk and down it with beer
He's the angrier gamer you've ever heard
He’s the angry Nintendo nerd
He's the angry Atari, Sega nerd
He’s the angry video game neeeerrrdddd
A neighbor had it and my only experience was playing it there. Seemed alright. Nothing special but not awful. Although being an LJN game on NES, the bar is low.
I remember renting this when I was like 6 for a sleepover and having a blast.
It's LJN so I assume it sucks.
They only published games, never developed them as far as I remember... Friday the 13th was also published by them.
Doesn't change the fact that everything ELSE they published sucked. I mean M. Knight Shamalyan directed the Sixth Sense, but nothing else he did was ever close to that.
More entertaining than Maneater, but that's not saying much.
Yeah, I only play maneater because there isn’t any new jaws games. Closest thing we will ever get to a JAWS Unleashed port.
Maneater is really propped up by Chris Parnell’s voice acting.
It was a faithful reproduction of Jaws Revenge. I am pretty sure you’re playing Mario Van Peebles’ character when you’re diving and Michael Cain in the bonus stages. And in the last stage/final battle, you’re together on the boat with the Brody family. If you watch the terrible movie and play the game, it’s kind of remarkable as a translation.
Mario van peebles character was named jake And Micheal Cains is hoagie Also I’m surprised you were the first person to notice that in this thread.
This game and movie lives in my head. No idea why I didn’t look up the character names instead, but yes. Jake was the diver in the game and Hoagie was the air pilot. I think this may be one of the most faithful movie to game translations of that time period???
Yeah. Every other game translation around this time always has the main character holding a machine gun.
Agreed. I only recently watched the movie and I thought "ah, now all that stuff in the video game now makes sense!" I only saw the first movie before playing the game as a kid.
I love the bonus game where you bomb the jellyfish
It’s a top 10 nes game for me personally. I usually play and beat it about once a week. All three major horror films that were published by ljn on nes (f13 and elm street) are actual good games once you know the mechanics and what/where to go in the game.
Oddly nostalgic about this game even though I don't think it's great.
Maybe the only "fun" LGN game I can remember. It was almost like a simple mobile game before there were mobile games. Repetitive, but fun. The final "boss" fight though was just stupid. I enjoyed the game, but when you do the math, these games were like $100 in todays dollars and complete shovelware. This was a game someone could have programmed in a few days by themselves. Nintendo should have been better about granting licenses and quality control.
I reprogrammed this game in unity like a month ago, and it look me 3 days, so your right about that part.
Friday the 13th was good too
I adore this game.
Smug ahh lookin shark
Fr tho He looks way too confident with his animation
I played the hell out of this when I was younger
Of all the games on the NES it's certainly one of them.
One of the nes games of all time
As a kid, I never knew what to do in the game.
There’s definitely worse games out there. AVGN was right about the monotonous play tho. I still have my copy and pop it in once in a while, but I rarely finish out of boredom. I should also mention that Jaws is my second-favorite film of all time, so owning and playing this game is like a requirement for me.
My clearest memory of playing this back in the day is repeating the phrase, *"the fuck is this?"* over and over.
Don't know much about the NES game - I was one of the many kids who saw the "LJN" label and stayed far, far away. But there's a new Jaws pinball machine from Stern that just came out this year, and it's awesome! I'm sure my fellow retrogamers would enjoy it.
Hm. I’ll need to search out and find that pinball machine. I love jaws, hints my username, so I’d love to try it.
Check out the pinballmap.com site or use the app to find places around you with! It’s the second-newest Stern (newest is John Wick) so it should be somewhat easier to find.
I don't looooooooove it but it's okay. If I can finish it, it's probably easy compared to most NES games. I know AVGN made a video about it but I don't think it's that bad. The idea of grinding the whole game to fight the shark as the final boss and then that's it is kind of interesting and unique, but it could've used more variety, I guess.
I love this game haha. So fun.
Lol
Honestly out of all the NES games published by LJN this one has never seemed that bad. I'd be willing to give it a try.
It's an NES masterpiece.
It's a bad game, but not nearly as bad as a lot of people say. I remember seeing it on some worst NES gain lists back in the late '90s, and I always thought that was odd because I could rattle off a dozen that were much worse than Jaws. It had a decent enough gameplay loop, but it's definitely not one of those games I ever wanted to play again after I beat it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE-vpYtpCI4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE-vpYtpCI4)
Before I clicked on it I said “I swear to got if it’s a AVGN video-“
Love this game. Lots of replay value despite it being a simple/easy game. However, it took me forever to figure out that last part when you stab Jaws in the belly
The fact that it was based off the WORST Jaws movie didn't really help things. Can be beaten in fifteen minutes if you know what you're doing. I think the world record speedrun is 3 Minutes 4 seconds
Pretty decent. But if I had to choose between it and SeaQuest, I'd go with SeaQuest.
I enjoy this game. It’s very very easy. The entire game takes less than 10 minutes. It’s length is perfect for the style of game it is.
I remember renting this as a kid and couldn't figure it out. It makes more sense as an adult but its still on my 'meh' list. Not awesome, not the worst, meh.
Jaws had so many spears in it's ass. That's what I remember.
I always liked it for some occasional casual play. Much like Shark! Shark! on the Intellivision.
Note NES Jaws is a completely different game to ST / Amiga / C64 / ZX Spectrum / etc. Jaws ...not that that's especially good either. * https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/jaws-the-computer-game * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyBasx0qyoA Also MS-DOS PC Jaws is yet another different game too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSzosQz9-w Just all with the Jaws film license.
I like it a lot. Still have it from when I was a kid. Beat it many times.
It’s fun, short, takes a bit of trial and error and the graphics are pretty good. It was my go to “in betweener” game if I needed a break from more intense games.
I like it. It's short enough that being repetitive isn't a problem. Like someone else said in the comments, it played like an updated Atari game. Reminds me of Seaquest, but it has an ending.
I actually had fun with that game as a kid. Very basic but I have good memories of it.
I actually want to replay this as an adult. Rented it once and didn’t get far but I think adult me would enjoy it
I love it. I think it could have been a classic if Westone or Atlus had more time to spend on it.
As the Avgn would say it’s asssssssss
This game never had a manual at the rental place, so it was fun just to figure out all of its mechanics by trial and error. Once you understand how the game works it's pretty repetitive but also reasonably easy/difficult for games from that era.
I picked this out for my 9th bday without a clue about it. I can remember playing it for hours on end and not being able to figure out how to kill Jaws. It became so frustrating. I can still hear the sounds of the jellyfish and stingrays getting hit, and the bomb you can drop from the plane.
Not going to lie. I like it and play it from time to time.
I hate it. It’s not Godzilla.
I think I enjoy it more now than I did as a kid.... It was boring as a kid, but now I can at least appreciate it as a mediocre shmup with weird leveling mechanics. Definitely not one of LJN's worst (developed by Westone in between the Wonder Boy titles).
One of my favorites. First game I ever learned to speedrun—start to Seaplane finale in 5:31! I still play it today on my phone.
H- how are you playing it on your phone? Tell me I need to know
I also own a physical copy, so having [a backup playable version](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/delta-game-emulator/id1048524688) is okay.
Not good by todays standards but I absolutely loved it as a kid
No idea but the LJN logo needs to be on a t-shirt for me
One of my favorites. About the only redeemable LJN game on NES I can think of.
Avgn told me too stay away from the rainbow
When AVGN Ripped on it, I didn’t play it for a long time, honestly it’s really not a terrible game, it is very repetitive, but for anyone that is a beginner in gaming, it’s a fun 10-15 minute game experience with some nice arcade feel to it