[Fresh]

Video no longer available (originally hosted on GameTrailers).

Release Date: Q4/2007
Platforms: PSP, DS, PS3, XBOX 360, Wii
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Activision
Genres:
ESRB: RP

July 28, 2007 – Be honest, gamers. How many times have you been playing a Spider-Man game or watching a Spider-Man movie and thought “Hey. Why can’t these dudes just get along and go get a milkshake?”

Prepare to live the dream.

After showing its trailer for a few days, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe strutted its gameplay today in the Marvel booth on the San Diego Comic-Con floor. A representative was on hand to take Spidey through a handful of levels and pimp the superpowers of the web slinger.

Friend or Foe’s storyline revolves around some jerk getting a hold of a symbiote and creating an army of the suckers that spreads across the world. As Spidey, you have history with these things and Nick Fury recruits you to go around the globe (Tokyo, Nepal, Egypt, etc.) to best these “Phantoms” and save your enemies.

Hold on! Save your enemies? Has the world gone mad?

Yes. Yes, it has. See, these symbiotes have captured your rouges gallery and put mind-controlling amulets on them. Folks like Sandman and the Green Goblin don’t mind being bad and trying to kill you in general, but when someone forces them to attempt ridiculous schemes, they get pissed. So, you run into these guys, break their amulets and let them join your team.

Once you’ve begun unlocking the more than 12 playable characters, you’ll be able to select a sidekick before leaving the SHIELD Helicarrier to kick some symbiote butt. If you get into a mission with Spider-Man and Iron Fist and find yourself overwhelmed, you can go back and grab a better choice from the three classes of characters. Big hulking guys such as Venom and Sandman are tanks, weapon-based guys such as Green Goblin are gadgeteers and quick little guys like Iron Fist are Scrappers.

Iron Fist isn’t afraid to use pink.
You go into battle with these partners and can switch between them at any time (if you have a second controller, your friend can drop in and out whenever). One of the levels we saw this morning had Spider-Man and Venom roughing up some slimy foes in Tokyo. The level starts, the screen fills with baddies, you beat’em, and the team moves on.

Now, there are two interesting things to combat in Friend or Foe. First, you can’t die — well, you can die, but you’re just going to come back to life wherever you fell — and second, there’s no super-power meter. You can use each character’s three abilities as much as you want without having to worry about looking for tokens or whatever.

This means that Spidey can web line, web shoot and web stun the bad guys as much as he wants to while Venom can shoot pieces of his symbiote, pull off an aerial pound and let loose a symbiote stab — which is a nifty looking move where Eddie does his impression of a blowfish and generates all these enemy-gouging spikes.

Iron Fist’s has a protection field called Dragon Spirit, the Green Goblin has pumpkin bombs, and Sandman has a whole bunch of beach-based attacks. If you get proficient with these attacks, you can start building a combo meter and watch your attacks get more and more powerful.

Sure, there’s co-op, but if you find secret areas in the single-player levels, you’ll unlock a two-player versus mode where you and your friends can face off against one another. Take that, teamwork.

When Spider-Man: Friend or Foe ships, you’ll be able to store power-ups — there’s invincibility, health regeneration, mega-damage and a screen-clearing move called Hero Strike — beat on enemies while your sidekick holds’em and upgrade your abilities with the SHIELD tokens you’ve found around the levels. There are five different locations with four levels each.

Once Sandman gets into your shoes, you’ll never get rid of him.
Although some have faulted the game for its kiddie-look, it seems to have solid controls and an interesting premise. Although a similar style worked for the LEGO Star Wars games, it remains to be seen if Spider-Man: Friend of Foe has enough unlockables to make it last like LEGOs. The final verdict will have to wait until the fall

[Artemis Fowl]

avoid it like the plague yo

[Author]

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