Sewer Shark
| Sewer Shark | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Digital Pictures |
| Publisher(s) | Sony Imagesoft |
| Platform(s) | Sega CD 3DO |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) |
FMV rail shooter First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Sewer Shark is a first-person rail shooter video game, and is the first on a home console to use full-motion video for its primary gameplay. It was originally slated to be the flagship product in Hasbro's Control-Vision video game system, which would use VHS tapes as its medium. However, Hasbro cancelled the Control-Vision platform, and Digital Pictures later developed the game for the Sega CD expansion unit. Sewer Shark is one of the first titles for the Sega CD, and was later bundled with Sega CD units, making it one of the best-selling games for the system. It was later ported and released for the 3DO in 1994. A port was also planned for the SNES-CD, but that system was cancelled.
Sewer Shark takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where environmental destruction has forced most of humanity to live underground. The player takes on the role of a rookie pilot in a band of "sewer jockeys", whose job is to exterminate dangerous mutated creatures to keep a vast network of sewers clean for "Solar City", an island paradise from which the evil Commissioner Stenchler (Robert Costanzo) gives his orders and critiques. The player's copilot, Ghost (David Underwood), evaluates the player's performance throughout the game, while a small robot named Catfish (voiced by Robert Weaver) scouts ahead and gives directions. The player is later assisted by Falco (Kari G. Peyton), a female jockey who believes that there is a hidden route to the surface. Falco is later captured by Stenchler, who threatens to turn her into one of his mindless minions. This plot is thwarted when Ghost and the player reach Solar City.
The objective of Sewer Shark is to travel all the way from the home base to Solar City without crashing or running out of energy, and while maintaining a satisfactory level of performance as judged by Ghost and Commissioner Stenchler. As in other rail shooters, the ship mostly flies itself, leaving the player to shoot ratigators (mutant crosses between rats and alligators), bats, giant scorpions and mechanical moles. Along the way, Catfish periodically gives the player a series of numerical coordinates corresponding to directions that the player must follow at a set of upcoming intersections. If the player takes a wrong turn or misses a turn, he or she may crash into a door, grate or wall, ending the game. (Later in the game, Catfish is replaced by a bird-like "crazy lookin' thing", which visually guides the player through the sewers.)
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