Spiderman: Friend Or Foe

There's a distinct feeling that Spiderman: Friend Or Foe doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It makes a point of mentioning that it's related to the films (presumably to help along with sales of a certain DVD that's just made its way onto shelves), but features characters that never existed all at the same time within the movies and furthermore has characters that are tied more to the comic books and haven't even appeared in the feature films. We would probably say it fits in better with the comics rather than the movie, so it's a bit strange how it's advertised as 'official movie merchandise'.

The tale goes that Spiderman is merrily battling his way through some of the usual suspects of villainy in his universe

 

After you eventually get through the start up process of the game (there are no less than five logo screens displayed, and seven start up screens altogether if you count the licensing ones

 

Spiderman: Friend Or Foe is a beat-'em-up at heart, and that's what you set out to do. Played over two screens most of the time, you take to the roof-tops, streets and insides of buildings to battle the forces of evil, and the simultaneous 3D on both screens is rather excellent, as are the swirls, explosions and effects when you take down enemies or use special moves. Your primary character is obviously the one with arachnid tendencies, but you are also tailed at all times by a partner. If in story mode your partner will be decided for you; if in free play mode, you can have whatever two characters you like to run through the levels (provided you have bought them in the shop with coins you have collected in the story mode). You can switch who you play as between the two partners at any time with a quick push of the R button, and if the one you happen to be playing is taken out your control will switch over to the other partner while the downed character recovers and heals some health. This means it's not too likely that you're going to die as you effectively have infinite lives if you keep switching between the characters (plus there are lots of health pick-ups), which is always an advantage in a game aimed towards the younger end of the market. If you're lucky enough to have a friend who also has the game, you can play the game in co-op mode. Lovely stuff. As you go through the levels you will unlock more characters, often your foes who have been brainwashed by the Phantoms and their master, who team up with you temporarily to ensure their freedom, hence the subtitle and hook of the game.

Sadly, despite the interesting set-up, Friend Or Foe falls victim to the thing that ruins many-a-scrolling beat-'em-up

 

To try to break up the game a bit, the developers switch things up with the boss battles. Rather than trying to tackle these guys head on, you instead use environmental elements to combat them and weaken them up before unleashing your fists on them. An early example is using webs to stick Doc Ock to the top of moving trains to slam him into bridges. It's nice to see the bosses being shown a little respect in that you need to slam them with something significant before they start taking any damage, rather than just chucking some webs at them and hoping they'll roll over and die. Another, less successful, thing used to break up gameplay are mini-games. These crop up mid-level, usually to unlock doors and the like, and range from 'bloody annoying' to 'pretty good', so it's a mixed bag really. We didn't like having to use the touch screen to activate panels or doors, though, when it was obvious that only a button press was needed.

Spiderman: Friend Or Foe is somewhat of a confused product in what its background is supposed to be and its style, but is a fairly competent fighter for the younger gamer. It does get repetitive, but its solid gameplay, quality presentation and attempts to make things more interesting place it slightly higher in our estimations than other games that try to do the same thing.