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SHARK! HUNTING THE GREAT WHITE FAQ v1.1
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by David J. Stein, Esq.

0. Foreward/To Do
1. Gameplay, Controls, and Equipment
2. Tactics
3. Career Mode Locations
3.1 California Beach
3.2 Ajanta Temple
3.3 Cuba Caves
3.4 Caribbean Wreck
3.5 Rhodos Temple
3.6 Austrailia Reef [sic]
3.7 Florida Platform
3.8 Mystery
4. Random Mode Locations
4.1 Tahiti Island
4.2 Hawaii Wreck
4.3 Rock Gate
4.4 Africa Reef
4.5 Caribbean Reef
4.6 Monterey Reef
4.7 Palau Reef
4.8 Crack Canyon
5. Revision History
6. Credits

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0. INTRODUCTION

0.1 FOREWARD

Shark! Hunting the Great White is a game written for Windows in 2001 by SCS
Software/Sunstorm Interactive/Wizard Works/Infogrames. Superficially, this game resembles a first-person shooter like Quake, but the differences are vast. You spend most of your time exploring eerie, underwater environments - reefs, shipwrecks, sunken temples - and a little bit of time in a cat-and-mouse battle with some enormous sharks.

This is not a perfect game. The graphics are primitive 3D - sparse models, low-resolution textures, occasional clipping/tearing issues - and the elementary physics model means you can swim right through some fish and plants. And it's hardly realistic (equipment weight and the bends are non-factors, and shark attacks result in a Nintendo-esque reduction to your life counter.) But this is not intended to be Half-Life; this is a small-budget game, and in that context, it's remarkable. The experience of creeping around the depths, hunting or (more often) being hunted by massive cold-blooded predators, is quite compelling.
Certainly worth an afternoon.

0.2 TO DO

Nothing left of note.

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1. GAMEPLAY, CONTROLS, AND EQUIPMENT

1.1 GAMEPLAY

Aside from the help file and Sharkopedia (educational section - very cool, try it), this game offers two modes: Career Mode and Random Mode. There are eight locations available in each (sixteen unique locations total.) Random Mode can be played at any time; it just adds a few random sharks to the level you selected and lets you kill one of them. Career Mode requires the player to achieve a particular mission on each level before proceeding to the next, and the player earns new and improved gear for successfully completing a level. This gear can be used either in Career Mode or in Random Mode.

At the start of the game, you will be asked to create a profile, which tracks your progress during Career Mode and your records in Random Mode. Before playing any location in either game, you may select from one of three difficulty modes.
The sole purpose of the difficulty is to change how much damage a shark does when it chomps on you. In Difficult, many times one bite will kill you. In Easy, you'll be able to take several bites, maybe four, before you're dead.

1.2 CONTROLS

You can reassign controls however you want. Mainly, you'll need standard 3D game controls (forward, backward, move left, move right, fire button, reload button, and mouse to control viewing angle.) I use a very weird A/Z/LtCtrl/Space arrangement, but only because I've played a whole lot of 3D games with these controls. Hitting 1 or 2 will bring up your primary weapon or your knife, respectively. Pressing B drops bait, which is largely useless (see below.)

If you haven't played many 3D games before, then you should practice moving around. You can, and should, get used to dissociating where you're traveling from where you're looking. If you're swimming forward, you should be able to look to the left and switch to the "swim right" key in order to keep moving in the same direction (while looking left.) This is an important skill in all 3D games, but particularly here, where spotting an approaching shark early is crucial for survival.

1.3 EQUIPMENT

Every level begins with an equipment loadout screen. You can choose from nine weapons, three oxygen tanks (of increasing capacity), three wetsuits (which enable you to descend to deeper depths), and three flippers (which make you move faster.)

Completing any level in career mode (except the last one) will earn you a specific piece of equipment: a better weapon, more spacious oxygen tanks, better fins, or a better wetsuit. You don't get to choose what kind of gear; sadly, there is no "shopping" aspect to this game.

Also, except for the last two levels, you can obtain an extra (specific) piece of equipment by finding a bonus object on the level. (When you find it, you may have to swim around the area near it for a while before the game registers it as a discovery. You'll know you've secured it when you see the "You have found a secret!" text.) You won't be told what or where it is, and they're well-hidden; but if you run across it while exploring, you'll get an extra piece of gear when you complete the level. If you die before completing the level, then you don't get anything - and you have to find the bonus object again later, during a successful mission, to get credit for it.

Weapons fall into four classes:

1) Knife: You always have this - press F2 while underwater to wield it. It does a small amount of damage to any shark right in front of you. It's mainly a "finish him!" weapon; if you run out of ammo but the shark is almost dead, you can take it down with this. Trying to do any significant damage with the knife is mostly a waste of time.

2) Poison-tipped spears: These will hit the shark and do a small or medium amount of immediate damage, and as the shark swims around, it will gradually lose some more health. More powerful spears are equipped with more powerful poisons. Also, these spears may either be band-ejected (the standard) or pneumatic (propelled by compressed air) - the latter hit harder, but move more slowly at greater depths.

3) Bangsticks: These eject a hard charge of concussion energy into the water ahead of you. There's no equivalent to this weapon in our above-water world, because air doesn't propagate pressure nearly as much as water. Under water, though, concussion force is a great tool - and, in this case, it makes a great weapon. However, this is *severely* distance-limited. If you're not fairly close to the shark when you fire this weapon, it won't do anything. You should actually be put it against the shark to achieve maximal damage.

4) Explosive-tipped spears: This is the last weapon you earn in career mode, and it's mighty powerful. Heavy damage, good throwing speed, long-range precision.
The only problem is its limited ammunition (you can carry only four of these), but in most cases, this should be enough to take down one or even two sharks.

Except for the knife, your weapons have very limited ammunition, and it takes several seconds to reload after every shot. Together, these facts mean that you should be very frugal with your shots. One trick to consider: After firing your weapon, you can immediately switch to the knife and start wielding it - and you will continue reloading your primary weapon in the background. When the "reloading" noises stop, you can then select your primary weapon and fire it again (if you still have ammo.)

In addition to weaponry, you have the following items:

Compass: Shows the direction of your current heading, of course.

Shark Radar: Initially, each shark in the level will appear as a silhouette with a ? next to it. If the shark gets within range once, its silhouette changes to a picture of the type of shark. Whenever the shark starts getting close, the picture or silhouette of the shark will flicker. If it's *really* close, you'll start hearing your heart beating in suspense. Finally, each shark has a health meter showing how badly it's hurt. While knowing the number, proximity, and status of the sharks in the level detracts from the suspense of the game, it's key for strategy.

Health Meter: Shows how badly you've been injured by sharks. If this drops to zero, your diver is dead.

Oxygen: Of course, you carry oxygen. Whenever you're underwater, you will use oxygen (and you don't when you surface.) Keep an eye on the timer - if this ever hits zero, your diver will immediately die. Your diver starts making choking sounds around 30 seconds to let you know that you're in trouble. In most cases, this timer should be fine, unless you're fumbling with your exploration attempts.

Bait: You also carry bait, i.e., chum. You can press B anywhere in the level (twice per level) to send out a hunk of dead, bleeding fish, which (supposedly) attracts sharks. It doesn't cost anything, but unfortunately, I've never seen it do anything significant to attract sharks, really.

Resupply Vessel: Almost every level begins near a vessel of some kind. You can replenish your ammo and oxygen once (and only once) per level by approaching this vessel.

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2. TACTICS

If you approach this game like Counter-Strike or Unreal Tournament, you're likely to end up as chum quickly and frequently. The engine is similar, but the style of combat is completely different.

Two primary factors distinguish this game from most others:

1) You're underwater. Your movement is heavily controlled by momentum. You can't dodge rapidly side to side to avoid a shark like you would a missile. Your movements are slow, which mean they have to be more calculated. Fortunately, the sharks have this same handicap.

2) The playing field isn't even. You're a tiny human, with limited energy. Your opponent is a 30-foot, one-ton predator with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Small sharks can seriously harm you with a bite; large sharks will kill you outright. Also, the shark is much faster and more agile than you: it glides around quickly and silently, and although it moves mostly in straight lines, it can quickly change direction with a flip of its powerful tail.

Now, the good news - you have two things the sharks don't: a large brain and a ranged weapon. Shark movement is predictable - in fact, all of them use the same swimming algorithm, so they all move in the same way. Also, these sharks don't move vertically as quickly as they do horizontally, so swimming upward or downward is a good way to break off engagement with a charging shark. You will get used to predicting where it's going, anticipating the direction changes, and learning evasive action maneuvers to avoid an oncoming shark. And you will learn to snipe them from a distance with a medium-range spear attack. Several well placed, medium-distance spear hits will reduce that fearsome predator to fish food.

Your weapons do have some limitations. Notice my use of the term "medium range." I point this out because you rarely take long-range shots, even once you know how the shark moves. You have very limited ammunition - eight to twelve spears *per level* - and most of them have to hit to last you through the level.
Also, *where* you hit your prey is important in determining the amount of damage it takes. Hits to the head and gill regions are very effective. Hits to the body region are good, but not great. Hits to the fins and tail do very little damage.
Plan accordingly. Finally, the damage is not always immediate; spaers may be poison-tipped, doing little damage at first but a moderate amount spread over the next ten or twenty seconds. You cannot plan to face down a charging shark; you will shoot it in the nose, and it will eat you a second later. Again, evasive maneuvers are key.

Note that these sharks attack exclusively in a hit-and-run manner. Every time, it will try to sneak up on you, try to take a bite out of you, and swim off into the distance. If you manage to evade its attack, you'll have a second or two when it's swimming directly away from you, in a straight line, and can be quite easily speared. It will eventually circle back for another attack, but not necessarily from the same direction.

With these things in mind, the standard shark-fighting technique is as follows:

1) Locate the general area of the shark. Watch your shark meter and listen for the heartbeat to gauge how close it is (see the Items section for information on the shark meter.)

2) Pick a good location. Imagine the sphere around you when you're bobbing in a region of open water - you can be attacked from any direction. This is the worst-case scenario. Your goal is to limit this sphere as much as possible. At best, you can find a spot where the shark can't reach you, e.g., inside a narrow tunnel. Barring this, try to find a bowl-like set of circumstances, where your sphere will be limited. At least, get your back against a good obstacle, if