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Spider-Man - Friend or Foe Review

The game sees you enlisted by Colonel Nick Fury to take on and take out a new symbiote threat that has recently crashed landed on earth. Along the way Spider Man will combat, rescue and ally with myriad heroes and villains from the Spider Man/ Marvel universe.

Vital Stats:

Gameplay - 7

Visuals - 6

Audio - 8

Fun - 7

Replay value - 5

+ Very definitely a funny game. + Music and Speech are both well composed and cheekily humorous. + Vs. and Co-op multiplayer are just plain fun. = Combat system is solid, if somewhat limited. = Simple learning curve makes it easy to pick up and play.

- Some sub-par camera work. - Playable characters are unbalanced - Spiderman is clearly the best.
- Short and easy as hell. It can be completed in a day.
- No compulsion to complete 100%, nor replay once completed

Personally I have never been a fan of Marvel games; I simply just don't know enough about the universe to get the most out of them. That, and there is always a whole host of better games out there. I got this game because I suspected it might possess a reasonable multiplayer (I've never been a fan of minigame multiplay.) I'll tell you something, my guess was on the money.

Let's get this straight. This is not a game that will see you donating sperm, just so that you can afford it. Even if you're hard up and have a hard on for Spider Man, the game's just not worth the effort (though I can think of less pleasant ways of getting money). However, if you see this game going for £20 or under - AND regularly play multiplayer games - then do yourself a favour and jump on it.

The first 5/ 10 minutes of this game set the tone perfectly. You're greeted with some fast, excitable and fairly heavy music which almost perfectly reflects the core gameplay, and that's just the opening menu screen. Upon actually starting the game you'll get your average story opening FMV with bog standard visuals, visuals that are bested by certain PSone titles, and reasonable animation, accompanied by some sweet music and a sharp script.

Right, good, I think I've driven those points home. Repeatedly. With a pnuematic drill. Time to get down to gameplay.

After a brief in egine cut scene in which Colonel Nick Fury (who rescued you from a horde of attacking symbiotes) explains the situation and enlists your help is sorting it all out, you're given a chance to wander round the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier which acts as your in game hub, providing interfaces for upgrades(bought using enemy dropped tokens), sidekick selection (unlocked during the quest), secrets (unlocked through targets and collectibles), game options and level selection. The first thing you'll notice here is Spider Man (whom you move using the nunchuk thumb stick). To be more speciffic, the first thing you'll notice is Spider Man's run. If you've ever watched the Special Olympics you know those guys that run using kangaroo like plate metal spring boards? Our heroe's run is just as animated as that, but a fraction of the speed. Still, you learn to ignore it pretty soon. (the bounce that is, the slow speed can get annoying when moving between areas.)

When you actually start the adventure you're treated to a quick briefing. I have to point out that it is worth buying the game just for these instances. The briefing (usually) consists of a dialogue between Spider Man, Nick Fury and the outrageously sarcastic Helicarrier Computer. It's the development of this three way relationship that provides the biggest laughs. I s*** you not; it's freakin' hilarious. Anyway, briefing over, you're dumped in Tokyo, with a sidekick of your choosing, and almost immediately get caught up in a small skirmish, during which you're taught the basics. The combat system is a cake walk, simpler even than Zelda. Z button to jump, B button you grab/ web and the A button to attack; the game can be completed using nothing but these buttons (and the thumbstick). Every move and combo is performed using these buttons in various combinations of presses and the occasional hold. This makes the game oh so easy to get into, but within about half an hour of play you will know pretty much everything there is to combat. Relief comes in later on when you earn different web techniques, which consist of Web Line (think MK's Scorpion and his harpoon), Web Shoot (compacted web balls of web: Impact Webbing) and Web Stun (encase opponents in cocoons of web) through which you can cycle using the C button. In addition to these are temporary power ups which you can activate using the D-pad. depending on which direction you press you will either heal, become temporarily invincible, double your strength or use a Hero attack. The hero attack is differs depending on whom you have employed as yourside kick, but the effect is always the same: Spider Man + sidekick launch themselves into the air and become the super hero equivolent of "Little Boy" to all on screen foes. The web slam manoeuvers, of which there are three, can be performed using gestures with the Wiimote, but these feel outrageously tacked on. Once you realise that the web slams, the most entertaining attacks in the game, can be executed with button presses these shamelessly superfluous gesture controls become almost entirely obsolete.

This combat system is simple, and really quite effective. Even after hours of play you can still get a cheap thrill from webbing an enemy out of the air only to slam him into the ground, causing an outrageously over the top explosion that takes out all other nearby enemies. However there are two major faults. After hours and more hours of play the combat can grow a little stale. At this point you might be tempted to switch to controlling your sidekick, which is done by shaking the nunchuk. Even though it can be fairly incosistant, this is the only control gesture worth using, but only, I believe, because there isn't a corresponding button. Now, sidekicks can be fun, for a few minutes, but their attacks are limited and there's something that feels generally unpolished about them. Spidey is just a hell of a lot more fun. Either way, the problem remains that the combat becomes fairly repetive, something that is exacerbated by the second major fault.

This fault is a poor range of enemies. Boss battles are far from imaginative and serve only to break up the uninspired combat which forms the bulk of the game, and it's this uninspired bulk that I'm directing my criticism at. Throughout the 20 stages that the game offers you'll find yourself fighting the same 4 enemies over and over again. Granted, their appearance, strength and special abillity differ from level to level, but for all intents and purposes they remain the same. It was this combination of small atack list and even smaller enemy list that led me to knock off a huge chunk from the overall score.

Combat aside, the visuals do nothing to help nor hinder the occasionally lack lustre gameplay. Some imagination has gone into the scenery, and in the comic book / faux cell shaded visual scheme they look fairly pretty, though the ealiest stages are really quite drab. The characters, though clearly simplified, remain faithful to the comic books, and the enemies, when the camera gets close enough, are sweet and simple and almost comical in appearance. The special effects? Well, while they can become fantastically over the top later in the game, they're nothing to write home about . Seen 'em a hundred times in other games; didn't care then, don't care now.

Simply put, the audio is great. The soundtrack always matches the scene and often uses stereotyped instruments and scales effectively and almost humorously. Sure, it's hardly surprising to be exploring Transylvania to the sound of dimished chords played on a pipe organ, in fact, one might go so far as to suggest that it's exactly what you'd expect. And yet, when it comes to battling symbiotic transylvanian you're given exactly the same but with a pumping drum beat and some solid rock/ or techno embelishments. Brilliant. What more could you want to this. In addition to this, the voice acting is, by far, more hit than miss. Alright, so the in-game quips and banter can grow old after five or six hours, but doesn't mean they're not superbly performed... mostly. I must praise those who voiced Spider Man, Black Cat and the helicarrier Computer. Simply brilliant.

So what's left? Well, the game is more full of secrets and collectibles than the Bush regime is full of s***.... actually, I don't want to be misleading, that is somewhat in accurate. You get the idea, though. The thing is, the levels are all fairly linear so you won't have to look too hard to find them. You probably won't even want to as the secrets and unlockables aren't particularly great. Concept art? Great... that's, uh....that's just great. Also, the game really isn't hard. You never die, you merely have 10 tech tokens (upgrade currency) deducted and then you respawn to battle on. By this point the game deserves a score no higher than 6.5 / 6.6, so if you're a lonely player then it's probably best to gloss over this game, unless you're a fan boy. Fan boys will eat this **** up. I say this because what really improves this game is the multiplay co-op. Sure, there's a vs. mode that's quite acceptable but there are three problems. Firstly: the arenas aren't great, and the best of them is the only one you don't have to unlock. Second: even though another player is more challenging than the AI, the limited combat system still takes its toll after a while. Finally, and most importantly, the biggest flaw in Vs. is that whomever plays Spider Man nearly always wins. This said, the one on one is still a good laugh and can entertain you for a few hours, and it's always strangely satisfying to throw a mate off a tokyo roof top.

The Co op is what this game is about. It's not the be all and end all, but it does add a lot. There is some awesome fun to had in lobbing enemies across the screen so that your pal can catch them and send them back, taking out lines of enemies in the process. In addition to this, you can literally spend hours alley-ooping enemies and slamming them into their comrades. The outrageous attacks (like the way Venom explodes into a spike ball) are always that bit funnier when someone else is nearby to capitalise. And of course you can also turn co op into another Vs. by seeing who can collect the most tech tokens. The subsequent rush to mop up all of the enemies only adds to already frantic action, and it's always fun to throw a particularly lethal enemy at your partner to slow him down while you masacre the small guys. The only real issue with the co op is that it really highlights how shoddy and appalingly undynamic some of the camera work is. The camera can be a nuisance at certain points during the single player, but at those same points in co op the camera can couple with some minor aliasing issues and, not only obscure certain side paths, but make stupidly difficult to attack what seems to be right next to you. This is only very occasional though and you'll compensate for it in a matter of moments (though you may still misjudge certain jumps pretty much consistantly).

All in all, Spider Man: Friend or Foe is a great little game. It's easy to pick up, easy to play and very easy to enjoy. It's not too heavily steeped in Marvel mythology so just about anyone can enjoy it, though fan boys will get just that little bit more out of it. The presentation is neat, though unimpressive, and the control sceme, while initially great, can become as repetetive as the combat. This won't bring you screaming back for more, but it won't have you screaming in frustration either. Absolute completion of this game quickly starts to feel like a chore so if you've got to do it, bring another along for the ride because this game is significantly by its well executed multiplay. Definitely one to get if you see it going cheap. I give it a well earned...