A Macabre Short With Lessons About Accountability
Of all the main characters in a video game, I don’t think anyone has deserved their fate more than the one in Loan Shark. I’m not sure which decision is the worst: they borrowed €999,999 from a loan shark, only to spend all of it on the tiniest fishing boat. Then they agreed to pay it back within a couple of days, and chose – of all the money-making ventures – to do it via rod-fishing. And when they happened to catch a talking piranha, they took the first Faustian bargain that it offered.
You can probably pinpoint the moment when you would have said “nuh-uh” and taken another fork in Fate’s path. I’m willing to bet it’s right at the start. But you don’t have that luxury in Loan Shark. You have to dig the main character out of their hole.
Read On If You Dare…
Revealing any further than the above immediately undermines Loan Shark. It’s one joke and a punchline, and revealing either of them would suck. So, we apologise in advance for being vague. It’s better in the long run.
Loan Shark is probably best described as an unsettling fable. The press stuff says it’s a horror fishing game, but that oversells the horror and focuses too much on the fishing. This is more of a thirty-minute ride that will have you chuckling or wincing in your seat, depending on the hues of your sense of humour.
That ride explores themes of accountability. The main character has made some terrible, awful decisions, and Loan Shark fantasises about a way of evading the consequences. You can probably guess whether those fantasies become a reality or tumble down.
In Over Your Fish Head
The game starts with that €999,999 debt hovering over the game screen. Tom Nook would be proud. There’s a lovely moment initially as you chip away at it, and we really do mean chip away. You make barely a dent on it, which leaves you vulnerable to an offer you can’t refuse. Suddenly repaying that debt seems possible.
You make money by catching, gutting and then selling fish. Armed with your fishing rod and lure, you cast out of the boat and play a fishing game that could have been drafted in from any one of the Best Fishing Games. Apologies for the poor terminology, as we’re not anglers: you need to reel the fish in when it’s calm, and be wary of when the line is taut. You can still reel in while taut, but you don’t want the line to snap.
The fishing is fine, I guess? It’s a little Track & Field, as you’re button-bashing to make headway. There’s not a huge amount of feedback that you’re doing the right thing. But complaining about the fishing in Loan Shark is like complaining about the punditry in EA Sports FC. In the end, it’s not central to what makes the game worthwhile.
Once the fish comes within 5m of the boat, it’s caught, and you can take it to a chopping board to gut. This, too, is perfunctory at best. It feels more like you’re painting a fish than gutting it; not that we’ve got any wish for an authentic gutting simulator.
And it’s after the fish is caught that consequences tend to happen. We’ll leave that there. Let’s just say that Loan Shark has a fine eye for Lovecraftian happenings and gruesome twists. On occasion, it can feel like you’ve zoomed into the boat from DREDGE for a Captain’s-eye-view of what is happening.
The Codfather
I’m a big fan of how Loan Shark turns the vice on its main character. And there are some genuinely atmospheric and/or unexpected twists in there. It’s possible to guess vaguely where it is going, but it’s not possible to map out how it gets there.
It also belies its budget. Sure, Loan Shark isn’t going to get Pixar on the phone to its modellers and animators, but there’s wisdom in the use of darkness that makes the boat-trip believable. I was suckered in for thirty minutes, and there was no way I was going to budge for a coffee break.
It’s far from perfect, though. While there are reasons to replay, they amount to two – maybe three, if we’re being charitable – branching points in the story. And to get to those branches, you have to do funky things that most players wouldn’t choose to do. Loan Shark doesn’t so much branch as allow you to ‘break’ the game in a couple of ways. Which is fine, but means that, on a subsequent playthrough, the plot feels linear, choices are railroaded, and there’s not much reward in playing differently. For a thirty-minute game, that’s a little skimpy.
The themes of accountability are diminished somewhat when the branching does nothing. Sure, you’re shown the consequences of your actions, but you can’t choose what those actions are. In my view, it damages the takeaways. The fable can feel a little hollow.
One-and-Done Thrills
That’s really getting into the guts of Loan Shark, though. If you’re more interested in treating it as a one-and-done experience, letting the atmosphere wash over you, then Loan Shark has so much more value. It’s a tricksy tale, a PT-like short rather than anything particularly deep. And it’s all yours for €999,999. Installments are available.
Oh, okay then, for you it’s £4.19.
Important Links
Loan Shark Turns Fishing On Its Head With A Chilly Cast Onto Xbox Series X|S – https://www.thexboxhub.com/loan-shark-turns-fishing-on-its-head-with-a-chilly-cast-onto-xbox-series-xs/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/loan-shark/9P6V3JB95XLX
