ArsGeek

Peter Parker, I’m breaking up with you. It’s not me, it’s you. Ever since the tepid release of what you call your third installment of a “film” with an equally lame game that came out around the same time, I began to lose interest in you. I love the comics. Your old tv show was campy fun and the cartoons at times were “interesting”.  My heart was won with the first and second movie that holds your superhero name and the games… wow the games kept the relationship going. A decent first and second installment, and then the Ultimate Spider Man made me feel all tingly inside… spidey tingly. Now it feels as if you’ve turned on me.

After your fiasco in May I stuck it out. I truly stuck it out hoping things would change. Deep in my heart of hearts I felt that you’d redeem yourself in “Spider-Man: Friend or Foe”. Oh how I was wrong.

The Good

Wonderful voice acting and a witty script gave this game promise. The dialogue was amusing and the graphics (although on this engine are a little choppy) over all I thought they were pretty decent. The selection of obtained characters (New Goblin, Prowler, Black Cat, Scorpion, Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Iron Fist, Rhino, Lizard, Venom, Blade, and Sandman) was exciting and some of the fighting moves and sequences had me saying “Wow, this is pretty cool!”

The Bad

Then like all good things, it came to an end. The areas; Tokyo, Tangaroa Island, Cairo, Transylvania and Nepal were visually appealing, yet the game play grew rapidly stale and the lack of camera control took the experience down a rung or two.
The premise was interesting. You are taken to The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier where you are briefed by Nick Fury that your friends and foes are being symbiote mind controlled in order to assist an evil genius bent on taking over the world. The mission should you continue to play: You must go to each location and fight the friend/foe, break them from the control of the symbiote shard, enter in an entertaining exchange, and then have them join your team. After each level and sublevel, you are able to go back to the Helicarrier and upgrade everyones abilities. Now say you find it’s unfair that you’re suffering alone, fret not! At any time during the game play you can have a second player join and plow through the scenes with you. Unfortunately the levels remain consistent in difficulty and you find yourself plowing through each level in about fifteen minutes or less.

Bottom Line: You beat a bunch of baddies and continue through- rinse and repeat.

The boss fights seem difficult initially until you spot the pattern and rather quickly you find yourself with a new friend/foe on your side.

I kept thinking, “Okay I know what they’re doing- this is so freakishly easy (almost insultingly so) because you need to hurry and rally the troops, gain the tokens to upgrade, and once everyone is obtained… then the real game begins!!” I finished the game this morning and my hopeful thinking was WAY off. Beating the final boss was no different than any of the other levels and then it was over. Poof Finis… No mo’. I sat there in disappointment waiting for something else to happen, aside from the credits rolling, nothing did. As Spider Man was transported back home, Nick hinted at a second installment, but if that’s the case, please don’t force people to pay for a teaser of hopefully a better, smarter, and more interesting game.

The thing that truly gets me is that It claims to be inspired by the Spider Man movies, it’s apparent that they drew their inspiration from the third one. Seriously, if the makers were shooting to create and release it so people will get hyped up over the October 30th DVD release of SP3, please don’t insult the fans. We’d rather wait for a quality game. 2007 is the year Spidey lost his webbing.

Overall Score: 4.75

Gameplay: 5
Experience (Sound/Graphics): 8
Replayability: 3
Fun Factor/Price: 3

Maker: Activision
Price: Around $39.95 USD

Technorati Tags: Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, Stan  Lee, Marvel, Video Games, AcTiVision

Popularity: 1% [?]