Spidey for kids, but a lot of fun!
Spider-Man Friend or Foe is a 1-2 player beat em up similar to Marvel Ultimate Alliance only you play as characters from the Spider-Man universe. That is an easy way to describe this game. It's a lot like Marvel Ultimate Alliance only you play as two characters at a time (instead of 4), and it's a sort of dumbed down version of the game made for a younger audience. You can play as Spidey, or several allies and villains in the Spideyverse. Venom, Blade, Iron Fist, Silver Sable, Prowler, Black Cat, Sandman, Lizard, Doctor Octopus, Rhino, Scorpion and others are all playable in this game.
The story involves a meteor that has landed on earth and symbiotic beings from the meteor known as Phantoms are wreaking havoc around the world. Nick Fuy enlists Spider-Man's help to find all the meteor shards and figure out who is behind the Phantoms. The story is extremely basic but it doesn't matter much, the combat and beat em up action are why you're playing the game right?
There are 5 different locations, with 4 levels in each. Every couple levels you'll get a new ally to join your team. The cool thing about the allies, besides the fact that you can play as some of the great villains in Spidey's rogues gallery is that you can upgrade them. You can improve their speed, strength and health as well as unlock a super attack for each ally.
While the game is fun, it is very repetative and this is extremely apparant in the enemy design and level design. There are only 4 different enemies in the entire game. That's it. Each level they have different "costumes" and maybe slightly different attacks, but they are really the same enemies as the first time you encounter them. It gets really boring after the first couple levels and your only reason for playing is unlocking all the playable characters and getting the achievements.
The level design isn't quite as bad, but there's really nothing special about it either. It's just there, and very bland. The most interesting level would be Transylvania with the unique buildings and atmostphere but the rest are just plain, highly stylized cartoonly looking landscapes.
I really like the cast of playable characters, although I really only played as a couple. I used Prowler at first and then mostly the Scorpion. I didn't use them that much though, I played as Spidey most of the time. He just has a better variety of attacks then any of your teammates do. It kinda sucks too cause the idea of playing as villains is awesome, its just they only have a few unique attacks. The best characters to use with Spidey are Iron Fist, the Scorpion, Venom and maybe Doc Ock, Rhino and Sandman. The rest kinda suck. The biggest dissapointment is New Goblin. He has the exact same attacks as Green Goblin. He doesn't get to use his sword or hoverboard at all. (GG doesn't use his hoverboard either).
Spidey has many more upgradable things than the allies do. He has something called the "Web Lab." This is where you upgrade his various web based attacks. During the game you can switch from the "web sling" attacks, "web shoot" and "web stun." Web sling seems to be the most effective of all, the various attacks consist of Spidey shooting out his webs to grab onto object (or enemies) and swing them around in different ways and slam them into the ground or throw them across the screen. One cool upgrade you can get is a toxin that is emitted whenever you use a certain web sling attack. Your enemies will get poisoned and do damage over tim. The web shoot attacks consist of Spidey shooting balls of webbing at enemies or objects, and a few upgrades let him create a bomb or a huge blast of webbing. The last ability, web stun, has Spidey shoot webbing all around an enemy to trap them in it and effectively stun them. There is a neat upgrade here that allows you to electrocute the enemies while they are stunned. There are a lot of variations on Spidey's attacks that give him a huge arsenal of combos to pull from. This is why you'll want to play as Spidey most of the time and let the computer (or your friend) play as one of your allies.
Aside from some minor problems the game is really fun and I highly recommend anyone play this game, especially fans of comic books or even fans of easy achievements. You can get all 1,000 points in 8 hours or less. Spidey's humor is intact and funny as ever and the voice acting for the other characters is quite good as well. The game has a great sense of style that is sort of cartoony with some flashy animations and humor all around. It is clear this game was intended for a younger audience but that doesn't take anything away from it. So if you lied Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X-Men Legends or if you're just a comic book fan in general give this one a shot.
