Impressions: Spider-Man: Friend Or Foe
There's a demo up for Activision's new Spider-Man: Friend or Foe on Xbox Live, and I've always loved Spidey (and free demos), so I thought I'd give it a shot. Turns out I probably shouldn't have bothered.
The gist is that Spider-Man defeats his foes, who then join his side, in order to battle a bigger menace. It's also a weird amalgamation of the movies and the comics, with a more cartoony graphic style. The demo starts with a cinematic where Spider-Man is surrounded by villains, then the new Green Goblin shows up to help him out. Then the villains start disappearing, and after Spidey is abducted by what I thought was a UFO but then suspected looked more like the SHIELD Helicarrier, you choose between Venom and Original Flavor Green Goblin to bash your way through the level.
More details after the jump!
Your battleground is ostensibly Tokyo, but it's basically just blue rooftops with the occasional neon sign or large cartoon character balloon for flavor. Meant for a younger audience, controls are as simple as the graphics, with one button each for jumping, punching, webbing, and switching between characters. So your options are limited. Web-slinging is awkward, so the combat ends up boiling down to punching. Repeatedly. There's not even that much variety to the punching. Just keep bashing away. Spidey has three varieties of web attacks, but the Goblin just has an area-effect electrical attack which ends up being not that helpful because one hit and it goes out while you're trying to charge it up.
Bashing in boxes and such nets you powerups and coins, and there are a couple bonus items you can locate to unlock extras later on. But it's a pretty straightfoward affair, punching your way from left to right, then right to left until you get to the boss. There's no web-swinging, no wall-crawling... just punching. The boss battle in the demo is against Doctor Octopus, and it just boils down to smashing a couple of turrets then pounding on Doc Ock while he tries to fix them. Yawn. What's hilarious is that after you defefat him, the mind control device on him comes loose, and he's apparently so upset that he had to be brainwashed into attacking Spidey that he joins his side. Go figure.
I've never been a big fan of beat-em-ups, since they tend to just devolve into smashing everything in sight, so I'll admit this game probably wasn't made for me. It's obviously geared towards a younger audience, but I can't imagine they wouldn't get just as bored as I did. Half the fun of playing Spider-Man is swinging around a city and climbing walls, so forcing the poor guy to stay on such a rigid path is painful to watch. And play. For crying out loud, if you go over the edge, you fall to your death! What's up with that?
Wootini
Posted to Video Games on 13 September 2007
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: activision, demo, friend or foe, spider-man, xbl, xbox 360
Actually, I had the same opinion. Something's just not right about the game. It's almost like it wants to be a diet version of Ultimate Alliance and fails. Horribly.
Why does Spiderman have tits?
Sounds like the game for Avatar: The Last Airbender ):
Rayo: OH GOD NOW I CAN'T UNSEE THEM.