PLATFORM

Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, PC, Playstation Portable

DEVELOPER

Next Level Games Artificial Mind and Movement Beenox Studios

PUBLISHER

Activision

GENRE

Action/Adventure

# OF PLAYERS

1-2

Rating

E10+

U.S. RELEASE DATE

October 2nd, 2007

MSRP

$49.99 XBox 360 & Nintendo Wii $39.99 Playstaton 2 & PSP $29.99 Nintendo DS $19.99 PC

Spider-Man Friend or Foe

OVERVIEW

Alien PHANTOMs have come to Earth and are wreaking havoc! It’s up to Spider-Man to stop them!

REVIEW

I’m going to cut to the chase here. This game is easy. Ridiculously easy. But that’s ok. Spider-Man Friend or Foe is rated E10+, and specifically geared towards kids. With that in mind, this game suddenly goes from overly simplistic to well put together.

The story is pretty straightforward. Spider-Man is ambushed by the Green Goblin, Sandman, Doc Ock, and Venom. After the New Goblin (Harry Osborne, I presume) makes a save and tries to even the odds, all six are attacked by some weird robots, and all are kidnapped by said robots except for Spider-Man, who is rescued by a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. Nick Fury tells Spider-Man about the robots (PHANTOMs), what they are, and why they must be defeated, and sets Spider-Man loose on his first mission.

After a brief explanation, you are set loose in the operations center onboard the heli-carrier. This part I liked - it was simple, and small. One of the major weaknesses of games like X-Men Legends was the sprawling mission-hubs (something they improved a little in the second game) - there is no such issue here. You have various terminals for your missions, one terminal to select a side-kick, one for upgrades, one for in-game rewards, and one for game options. All right next to each other - no needless exploring and mindless talking needed. You get in, buy your upgrades, get your partner, and go.

Spider-Man and Black Cat team against some PHANTOMs

To start the game, Spider-Man can be paired with one of two “sidekicks,” Prowler or Silver Sable. As the game progresses, you encounter allies or face enemies who are being mind controlled by the PHANTOMs. The allies join you (are unlocked as available sidekicks) pretty well immediately, and the enemies will join you after you defeat them, and break the PHANTOMs mental control. The look of each of the characters is based on the movie design, and for those characters that never appeared in the movie, they are basically given their comic look with a little updated feel. Generally the characters look good. They are a little cartoony at times, but it fits the tone of the game. I couldn’t figure out why they made Black Cat so short though - but that was just the comic geek in me in revolt. There are two exclusive characters on the PSP version - Carnage and Electro, so there is that little perk if you own one of those systems.The mission levels are extremely straight-forward. You could almost call this game a sidescroller. The level’s map does twist and turn in three dimensions, but you have a very specific path to follow from the start of the level to the end, and you get attacked at certain parts of the level by groups of PHANTOMs. Simplistic, but mindless fun. It didn’t take me too long to realize that this game really was just an old-fashioned button mashing sidescroll, and I suddenly relaxed and started to have a lot better time. I had no idea that modern gaming had become more stressful!

Spider-Man battles a group of opponents

The controller configuration is pretty standard with attack, jump, and throw buttons. Pushing them in different combinations will yield different results. But you don’t need to worry about complicated button combinations to perform ultra-moves. As I said, this is a button masher, so you probably could get through this game using only simple attacks. Mixing it up a little can be fun though. Juggling enemies with Spider-Man’s webbing was easier than you might imagine, and it didn’t take long to feel comfortable rushing large groups of PHANTOMs. The control scheme of the various partners is identical - of course they each have different assets, so their attacks manifest differently. They also have differing speeds depending on who they are - bigger characters like Doc Ock move considerably slower than lighter allies like Iron Fist. It doesn’t have a huge impact on the game, but it is a noticeable difference.Throughout the game you gather tech tokens, which can be used to purchase upgrades in the heli-carrier. As with everything in this game, the upgrades are extremely simple. This is a good thing in this case - this is a button masher, so if there was an overly complicated upgrade system like there was in Legends 2, I probably would have put the game down. The upgrades don’t do a ton, and they definitely aren’t needed to beat the game, so for maximum fun it is better to just upgrade Spidey’s web attacks first before boosting the stats of your team members.

Tokens are also spent whenever you “die.” Now you can’t actually die in this game - if you are “killed” by an opponent, or fall off a building, you return to the board, and spend a few tech tokens automatically. Of course, if you don’t have tech tokens, you really don’t need to worry, you still come back. This takes a lot of the frustration out of the game, but it also takes some of the challenge out of it. Of course, I have to go back to the rating of this game, and remember this really is made for kids, and that kind of explains it. In many ways, this game reminds me of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game: you die, pop back in right where you fell, and if you run out of lives, you can just pop another quarter in and keep going. Granted, you don’t have a limited number of lives in Spider-Man Friend or Foe, but the effect is the same. There is really nothing to stop you from just pushing forward until you reach the end of the game. Hardcore gamers might not like that, but casual and young gamers will really enjoy having a game where they won’t be penalized for being less skilled with the controller.

Of course, because this game is so well suited for casual gamers, that automatically makes it a good title to try out on the Wii, which I did. The game is pretty well the same on the Wii. The look isn’t any different, and surprisingly the controls aren’t really either. They try to make some use of the motion control, but thankfully they show tremendous restraint there. There is really only two times when you can ever use a motion control, and only one where it seems to really do anything. You have to shake the nunchuck in one player mode to switch the player you are using (if you are one-player), otherwise, swinging the nunchuck around is supposed to modify the kind of grapple attack you perform. It might do the latter - I had a hard time reproducing some attacks, but it seemed that the motion control wasn’t intended for precise move sequences, rather to modify what your character did based on your own natural motions with the controller. If the latter was intended, I have to take my hat off - that is exactly how the motion control should be used in a game like this.There are a few parts where you might be frustrated by the lack of a camera. But not very many. You don’t get to control the vantage point, but there isn’t really anywhere where you would need to. Yeah, there are a few places where you wish you could, but keeping in mind that this is basically a side-scroll, it is an easy limitation to get over.

BOTTOM LINE

This game might get old fast for hardcore gamers, but if you are up for a light button-masher, you will have a lot of fun with this game. It is especially good for casual gamers and very young players who can’t handle more difficult adventure games yet. It is ideally suited for two players, so bring a friend, but you can play it through solo with an AI teammate. Good, old fashioned, mindless fun - you don’t get that very often anymore.

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