AMN's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a very accessible reach into the world of Spider-Man video games. Activision took the engine that powered Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, simplified it, lowered the difficulty, and made a self-contained story playable for the whole family.

The game is very easy to pick up and play. Activision weaves a more light-hearted adventure through the game than most of their recent games based on the Marvel licenses.

The story has you fight some of the biggest Spider-Man villains interspersed worldwide with an army of holographic clones powered by symbiotic meteor shards. Yes, you read that right. They quickly establish the premise during the opening cinematic without burdening you with thirty years of the same Spider-Man back-story and villain relationships you have probably read, seen or heard a million times. Along the way, you get to rescue many of Spider-Man's greatest enemies and work alongside them; hence, the games 'friend or foe' subtitle.

What's Hot?
Just like previous missions, you take on assignments from your central hub. This time Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier serves as your base of operations. From here you can choose which characters you wish to bring with you into battle or upgrade your characters using tech tokens. Thankfully, you have a wide array of allies you can align yourself with. Some are fan favorites, such as the Black Cat and Blade. A few may be less popular, but still fun to play around with and experiment around with combo variations.

Instead of the usual four player action that the recent Marvel games have put you into, Spider-Man:FoF drops the action down into just you and a partner. There is no online co-op play, but two players can tackle the world-spanning adventure together arcade-style, or you can go at it alone with only the computer A.I. to help you out. You have the ability to swap between your two characters with a simple button press. The computer A.I. does pretty well for itself. You won't find yourself constantly babysitting your characters as much a previous Marvel games, which is a welcome addition to the engine.

What's Not?
Before sitting down with the game, you must mentally prepare yourself to throw away most of your understanding of the Spider-Man universe, since from the very first scene Spider-Man:FoF establishes itself as non-canon. The games lack of back-story does a good job of getting you into the action before you start questioning the premise of the game. However, for those that are more familiar with Spider-Man, a few things may strike you as slightly odd, since the game has a tendency to follow the Spider-Man movies with a bit of the comics' narrative to round things out.

The greatest downfall of the game lies in its difficulty level. The game is far too simple for its own good. It harkens back to the days of the simple sidescroller, where you merely had to clear the screen of identical bad guys to advance to the next screen where you rinse, cycle and repeat. The only difference is that now that game is in 3D, with slightly better graphics. There are no major puzzles, or platforming elements to concern yourself with.

The game's unlockables and upgrades rely on "tech tokens." Tech tokens are found any and everywhere. Should you lose a life or fall in battle there is a small token penalty, but given the simplistic difficulty of the game, those times should be few and far in between. More experienced gamers will be able to breeze through and upgrade very easily. The upgrade options are a nice touch themselves, but aren't necessary even when the difficulty finally ramps up a bit.



Graphically, Spider-Man:FoF doesn't set any new bars for detail. Despite the comics being set in a very vibrant world, the game doesn't really live up to the source material. The Character textures are sub par for a game that focuses on them so much.

Final Word
Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a good idea on paper, but in simplifying the engine they have used in their other Marvel-based games, Activision may have done the game too much of a disservice. The challenge is severely lacking and there is not much in the way of variety in terms of enemy characters. The focus is squarely on Spider-Man and his partners. Given the fact that you spend the entire duration of the game fighting minor variations on the same few enemies, the game loses much of its replay value.

It is refreshing to finally have a title that is suitable for the whole family. The lighter toned theme makes the game sit right at home with most Saturday morning entertainment. However, many Spider-Man faithful may take issue with some of the comic misnomers. Fans of the movies will enjoy taking control of Spider-Man and company, without the burden of a dark, grim back-story. Everyone will enjoy the absence of Toby Maguire's acting.