Spider-Man: Friend or Foe

"No question, it's a foe."

Spider-man: Friend or Foe is a good idea for a comic book video game. Take a popular hero, with a diverse set of villains, and let the player choose who they want to fight with. In theory, it sounds like it would be a great game; it sounds like it would really work. Unfortunately, the execution in this idea just isn't there.

Graphics 4/10
The first big disappointment was the graphic department. This games looks like it was designed for a last gen console. It looks cartoony, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except it doesn't look solid or fluid with the cartoon like appearance. A great example of this is the Green Goblin character. His costume has a lot of "jagged edges" caused by his armor suit. These edges melt into each other at times and just look way too jagged at other times. It's just something that looks...not up to par on the 360. There's not much variety in the enemies' looks either. Each stage has pretty much the same enemy skin re-used the whole time. The bosses are all okay too. They were all overall forgettable, which is a shame. The enemies that becomes either friends or foes are either hit or miss. Some look really good in the cartoon inspired graphics. Some look like crap. It's really a mixed bag, and to be honest, there's probably more that are bad than there are ones that are good. The villains are all mostly inspired by their movie look, which is fine. I liked the fact that a lot of the things were inspired by the movies, like the voices and Spidey's looks. Spider-man himself looks okay, except he has a blending problem going on with his suit's webbing sometimes. It's annoying. Most of the graphics are annoying. Luckily, there aren't many frame rate drops, or slow-downs. And I thought that, overall, it was relatively smooth and fluid during transitions. But otherwise, the graphics were a huge problem.

Sounds 5/10
The sound is the best part of the game, which in this case, is not a good thing. Hitting an enemy triggers a comical sounding sound effect, like a bang, or a pow. It's cool the first time you hear it. It starts to get annoying the 50th time. It makes you want to mute your TV after the 70th time. Spider-man's webbing slinging sound effect is more annoying than anything else, and since you'll be using it a lot, it will grate on your nerves faster than any of the other noises. There's not music in the levels, and the music that is in the games are forgettable and bland. I wanted cool, fast paced music that would put me in the mood, like the music featured in the movies and the movie games. Unfortunately, what I got was filler, "epic" music that disappointed me and made me bored. The voice-acting and dialog are the saving grace of the music department, though. I thought all of the voice actors were cast perfectly, and they all sound really good, and perfectly fit the characters. The dialog was also decent. Spider-man kept his witty, upbeat jokes through out the story. The other characters interacted with him well, and I liked the way he made comments to people that usually are his enemies. I really liked the New Goblin's voice actor. Even though he strayed away from what the movies gave us, it was still good. In fact, I thought it was better than the movie's voice. Overall, the music was bad, the effects were bad, but the voices were surprisingly good.

Gameplay 3/10
Ouch. I'll be up front with you: the game is boring, repetitive, and incredibly easy. How easy? I beat the game in four hours, and apparently, that's on the high side of the average. The achievements are very easy to get, and you usually get them the first time around, without even trying. In fact, I got all of the achievements the first time I beat the game, and for at least half of them, I didn't even know I was unlocking them.

It breaks down like this; someone is controlling villains and it's up to you, Spider-man, to go to exotic locations and attack a bunch of scrubs until you beat the boss and, in doing so, unlock some new partners. Sounds fun? Well, it isn't. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to lose a life in this game. I mean, you could just run around the screen and not attack anyone, and you still would make it through, because your friend would just reap the benefits. The levels all play out the same, too; go to one screen, wipe out all the bad guys, go to the next screen. Wash, rinse, and repeat about 5 or 6 times and you're done the stage. The environments all look different, but that's about it. You have a mountain area, a desert area, a cold area, a tropical area, and they all play out exactly the same. It's so boring it blows my mind.

Why is it so boring? Well, you have to smash your way through a bunch of enemies to make it to the next screen. That wouldn't be so bad, except every single screen is like that. I was seriously bored after maybe a level and a half. The enemies are stupid, too. There's little to no AI going on. They take a few hits, yeah, but they never dodge or try to evade, and they rarely even fight back. They just stand there and take it. The thing is, there's no way to change the difficulty. I get it, this is a game that has a younger audience in mind, too, but still, at least give an option to make it harder. I can sit back and imagine this game if it was harder. Sure, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be so much better. Instead, what we got was an, annoying, easy, and amazingly boring game.

You'd think that the partner system would help out and add some serious depth to the game, but no. Adding another character just makes it that much easier. And you don't even do much with your partner, except the rare double hero attacks, which are cool, but like I said, they're rare to see. The heroes and villains all do have different move sets and attacks, which is a plus, but the fact is that you just have to use one button the whole time to just win. That's what it comes down to; it's just a boring, bland, easy button masher. It has no depth, has no redeeming qualities, and is probably one of the top three easiest games I've ever played.

Overall 4/10
You know...a big thing about video games is they should be fun to play. This game just wasn't fun for me at all. It was so bland and boring that I was actually happy that the game was so short. It's a shame, because Spider-man usually has good games, a contrast to all the other franchises out there that are worthless. But it's games like this that just puts a bad taste in your mouth, and at the end of the day, I just can't believe how mundane this game is. Bottom line is, don't buy this game, even if you're a huge Spider-man fan. A rental should give you enough exposure to agree with me.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 10/29/07

Game Release: Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (US, 10/02/07)