Spider-man: Friend or Foe (Wii) Review

Friend or Foe is a game all about Spider-man teaming up with the comic-book hero's most famous enemies in an effort to overcome an unknown villain and prevent him from indoctrinating other foes, such as Doctor Octopus, to do his evil bidding. Once each foe is freed, they then join your team and help overthrow the new adversary. The basic premise is pretty simple and the whole theme of the game is far lighter than recent Spidey efforts, which is definitely a good thing for those comic lovers growing bored with the dark overtones that are creeping more and more into the past couple of movies. As well as enemies, Spider-man can also team-up with other heroes such as Silver Sable, Blade and Black Cat, so there is a wide selection for fans to choose from in this platform-fighting-melee adventure and everything is topped off by the accompaniment of high quality voice-over work and a simple-to-learn gameplay mechanic that basically revolves around one-button combination moves that anyone can learn with ease.

Players must travel far and wide to save the day in this rather easy affair that involves running around, grabbing objects or enemies and flinging them all over the place whilst avoid death-filled falls. Rinse and repeat and you have the general gist of the entire game. There is not much else at all to this 3D platform/fighting title, in all honesty, and yet the game still proves to be considerably enjoyable throughout thanks to the variety in levels and, as mentioned before, great use of vocal work. Part of its appeal, other than the light-hearted nature, is in how everything can be completed in probably eight hours maximum, including finding secrets during the game, thus preventing boredom from setting in. Obviously, though, this proves to be its major downfall as well, since who wants an expensive game that lasts for such a short time? Younger gamers are more likely to get the greatest enjoyment from this, overall, since whilst short, it definitely holds enough thrills to entertain. Older gamers might want to think about renting instead.