Spider-Man: Friend or Foe

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Making the most out of the old adage that your enemy's enemy is your friend, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (FoF from now on) lets you take control of numerous heroes and villains from the Spider-Man 'verse and go on a beat 'em up adventure that brings to mind titles like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends.

Pros

  • Venom, Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Silver Sable and Prowler help you out in the battle against evil

Cons

  • The plot is a little light on, repetitive missions

Bottom Line

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a very simple game aimed at the younger audience with low difficulty and repetitive action. For older gamers and those who expect a little more from their games than a shallow beat 'em up experience might want to look elsewhere for their superhero action.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 99.95 (AUD)

Playing as Spidey, you eventually gain the help of cretins like Venom, Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus along with some heroes like Silver Sable and Prowler. The plot is a little thin -- chunks of a meteor hit Earth, someone's using them to create evil creatures, you have to stop them -- but the game keeps things moving fast enough that you don't really notice.

The game also ditches the expansive cityscape of the recently released Spider-Man 3 in favour of smaller room-sized areas; as such, the missions are repetitive to a fault: you enter a room, enemies appear, you beat them all up and move on. There are some interesting RPG-lite elements that let you power your characters up but the gameplay feels pretty shallow all around. Thankfully, a friend can jump in and help you out, which is probably the best way to play this game.

I am giving FoF the benefit of the doubt because it's obvious that it's geared towards a younger audience: the difficulty is low, the action is mind-numbingly simplistic and the overall vibe of the game, from the art style to the character dialogue, is juvenile -- as in youthful, not immature. It's sure to be a hit with its intended demographic and that definitely counts for something, which is why I am awarding the game a good score. However, older gamers and those who expect a little more from their games than a shallow beat 'em up experience might want to look elsewhere for their superhero action.

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