Generally, it doesn't matter too much who you play as. You'll always be working towards a common goal. The characters have different focuses in Phase One, dependent on their role in the film. You'll have a job to do, but you'll work together to do it. The game's main requirement is cooperative decision making, but it's not that simple! You've got to work together to ensure the shark is always on the run and scared. Without that fear, they won't see things as risks, and that's dangerous. Their focus is keeping hidden and taking sly attempts to gain strength. Allowing leeway to do as they please will mean they'll be using their abilities to eat more rather than escape. Speaking of, the shark has an equally tough job. The shark needs to stay hidden from the heroes as best it can, not allowing them to find him, whilst also devouring the poor people of Amity Island. If a swimmer vanishes from the board, you can have a solid guess at where the shark is.

In Jaws, each hero gets a different set of abilities and limitations but with a shared objective, and the shark plays in a completely different way. The heroes need to work as a unit to communicate their plans and abilities. Only one can collect barrels, only one can carry them easily, only one can fire them at the shark. They also have a selection of abilities to coincide with these, but communication is key! The last thing you want is for each beach to become a bikini buffet for the shark!

The heroes now need to kill the shark, like in the Jaws movie. Dependent on how well they did at preventing locals from becoming lunch, they’ll receive item cards to help them. They do a range of things, centred around hindering and slowing the shark. Their goal is to get the shark to zero health. It’s a pretty wobbly scale that doesn’t always feel as tightly woven to the first part of the game as you’d like. And this is perhaps the game’s greatest stumble, in that the first act can sometimes feel inconsequential. The effectiveness of the bonus cards earned from the first round varies—several can give zero benefit based on failing a die roll—and you might feel that your performance in the first portion of play was irrelevant. But at other times, a well-played card can pay out immensely as you nail the shark with an explosive or take a huge chunk out of the boat with your massive jaws. In Phase Two, you don’t get the benefit of unique roles or jobs. You get unique items with unique benefits, but that’s all. Everyone sings to the same hymn sheet, and that’s the sheet of shark slaughter. You need to co-operate, but in less of a “do your job” style, but more in the sense of divide and conquer. Having three spots that may reveal a menacing maw means you can’t leave any alone without good cause. The discussion here though can be a lot more open due to the repeated round style. And when the ship inevitably turns to scrap, there will be less area to cover, meaning it may go down to the wire! The shark has to take you all down, and being a martyr is a completely rational thing to do here! Shark This is the beginning of Jaws’ best scenes. The Orca. The vessel that could either become the greatest creation in terms of shark hunting or simply shark chow. The boat is split into eight sections on a 2×8 grid, shown through cards. The cards are double-sided to show gradual wear and tear and can be removed to show full destruction. For a game that looks to be a cat and mouse-esque film port, this is fantastic. There is no denying it excellently links to the cult classic, with each card containing a quote from the film. It’s impressively designed, and I guarantee your performance in Phase One is not a surefire route to winning.

For a game that looks to be a cat and mouse-esque film port, this is fantastic. There is no denying it excellently links to the cult classic, with each card containing a quote from the film. It's impressively designed, and I guarantee your performance in Phase One is not a surefire route to winning. Victory is sealed when the heroes perish or the boat sinks! These points also have stats for the shark, determining its evasiveness and damage it will do. Sometimes it’s too tempting to not go for the big hits! As before, the shark's movements are a mystery. Whoever controls it will be given three location cards to choose from, and these dictate how much power and evasiveness it'll get in that area. At the other end of the scale, our heroes must decide where they think the shark will emerge. Do you divide and conquer? Or do you congregate in one spot to boost your chance of a kill? You'll have to choose wisely, because the shark may just eat the boat out from under you and dump everyone into the sea. Awkward.Jaws was not just another cult classic. Through a huge following and excellent reception, it gained its place in film history as a classic. A giant shark with an insatiable appetite terrorises the innocents of Amity Island. What’s not to love? Well, it gets better knowing that a rag-tag team of misfits decide to take the lead on the shark slaying. Between managing the chaos, arguing, and having very questionable style choices, they do manage to beat the shark down. It’s epic, and a film you need to have seen in your lifetime! There’s also the small issue of player scaling. With fewer than four, participants will need to control more than one character—possibly even all three crew if playing a two-player game. This is not overly difficult, but it results in a more cerebral, quiet experience with less discussion. Strategic play may rise, but the overall joy of play diminishes as those fevered discussions to deduce the shark’s position disappear. Leave it to the design studio Prospero Hall to resurrect this 44-year-old film in a new cardboard format. This group of designers has been responsible for recent hits such as Horrified, Jurassic Park: Danger!, and even the Funkoverse Strategy Game. They design mass-market titles that bridge the gap between gaming hobbyist and random Target shopper.