Spider-Man: Friend or Foe

The latter...

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe follows the basic gameplay structure and design that seems to have become some sort of unwritten default for Marvel franchise games everywhere. Isometric / top-down rolling beat 'em ups with drop-in co-op system, levels based around classic bad guys, a characteristically buff purchasing system based around strange blue tech thingies collected along the way, levels comprised of areas unlocked as the requisite number of goons are dispatched, dual special moves, et al. Ultimate Alliance, X-Men-Legends and X-Men Rise of Apocalypse all followed this credo to the point it felt a bit like the same game reskinned - which is not to say any of them were particularly terrible. Therefore, there was no reason Spider-Man should be any the worse for not exactly shattering the mould here. Unfortunately, it just manages to slightly miss on nearly every single point, cumulatively making a hash out of what should have been a shoe-in for making an adequate game on the back of existing ideas and characters.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe claims to hark back to the more pulpy Stan Lee days of Spider-Man than the slight reinvention in the movies. The fact that all the costumes and models are based around the film makes a lie of this really, especially the suspiciously Alfred Molina-esque look of Doctor Octopus. Regardless, mischief is afoot as the villains of the world seem to be falling under the sway of a mysterious figure (well, that'll be Mysterio then) and doing yet more villainous things. Cyclopean cigar-chewer Nick Fury promptly sends you, Spider-Man, off to stop the resultant super powered tomfoolery, freeing the enslaved villains as you go.

The selling-point point of the game is that once said super villain (or occasionally hero) has been saved, you can then recruit them to be your sidekick. The AI will have them faithfully orbit around you, gamely helping you punch the face of injustice right on the nose. Goons and scenery will typically spout 'tech tokens' when split open, and such goodness can be spent back at base between missions to upgrade special moves and attacks.

The base acts as the hub between missions. The depressingly predictable jungle / city / fire levels are basically comprised of a linear series of areas that will lock the player in until a certain amount of goons are dispatched, at which point a gateway or bridge will appear for no discernable reason. Maybe you will want to unleash that Dual Hero bomb which is certainly visually distracting, but ultimately not much use. You can employ that swish new attack you bought at base with your tech cookies or whatever the hell they're suppose to be. Again, not really much in the way of a point. This is simply because the design of the goons is ludicrously bad.

All but the hardest of boss battles can be completed with a constant tapping of any one of the attack buttons. Spider-Man suffers in much the same way as the recent Diablo-wannabe Loki did - making the goons plentiful in no way compensates for them being all identical, poorly scripted, and no actual fun to defeat. Spider-Man takes this degeneration a step further and makes the player all but invincible. Being damaged will cause a loss of the nano-biscuit things you would get to spend at the base, but no threat of death. This won't really cause you any pangs of loss as you never needed them in the first place other than to break the monotony of the attacks you start with. In fact, was it not for the fact that each arena only unlocks upon the demise of the goons, you could merrily crawl your way on hands and knees all the way to the end of the game. Burdened with the necessity of breaking heads, the limited and un-engaging combat system is only less of a chore than it could be as it's all extremely easy. Doctor Otto Ocatvius in particular goes through everyone up to and usually including the Boss like an eight limbed blender.

Playing with another human is the best chance of any real playability in Spider-Man. The arena VS mode is a poor cousin of Super Smash Brothers, or even Marvel: Rise of the Imperfects for that matter, and is only good for the momentary pleasure of someone actually punching ol' Spidy in the face with any tangible effect. The main co-op mode is slightly better than going it alone, but not a patch on the comic brutality of Ultimate Alliance, which was not really any more challenging, but was more fun along the way.

Spider-Man Friend or Foe is a surprisingly poor product considering all that the developers needed to do was effortlessly copy someone else's character design onto someone else's game design. They could have been done and dusted with an uninspired but playable Marvel franchise in time for cookies and comic books. Instead, this offering has little redeemable features and is better side-stepped.

Foe.

42%

By Duncan Lawson