Spider-man: Friend or Bore

I played through Spider-Man: Friend or Foe this weekend to review it for an upcoming episode of my comic. Not one of Activision's strongest outings, to be sure.

It's a very short game. You can probably whiz through it in 2 to 3 hours. If you go for 100% completion (as I did), it's closer to 7 to 8 hours. Of course, 100% upgrading all the characters just means replaying same thing over and over.

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Game Tip:
To get most "tech tokens" to upgrade your characters, just replay the final level. You will only have three battles, and the boss fight. About ten minutes of play to net you over 3000 tokens for taking out the final boss. As opposed to longer stages which get you closer to 1000, if you spend the time to really max out your combo meter and break every single box on the level.
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It's a shame that games like this are still being made. It doesn't really appear to have been created as a Spider-Man game. The characters are pretty much just plugged into it. (With terrible voices for the most part.) Webslinging never comes in to play. You can't crawl up walls. There is no spider-sense, apart from him saying, "You better believe my spider-sense is tingling." The game seems to just have been hacked out, and then as an after-thought they added the Spider-Man license to actually sell a few copies. That's nothing new, of course.

But after games like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Spider-Man's other self-titled games, there should be no going back to the generic anyhero template for our favorite arachnid protagonist. It's just not right!

There are a number of Marvel comic characters appearing as playable characters... most of which I'd like to see utilized in a better game. Everyone of them has a couple of their own special moves, but nothing dazzling. You'll be sticking with Spidey, as he has a bunch more upgrades to his arsenal.

Okay, actually, not everyone has their own unique move sets... The Green Goblin and the New Green Goblin are both in the game... and they have identical moves. But you'll have to boost their stats individually to get that 100%. But their goblin gliders aren't playable. No one gets to fly. They're not quite so cool when they're running around on the ground with all the little people, are they? Okay, actually, it's more like "bouncing" rather than running. Weird animation choice. Of, and none of that fancy use of the analog stick... you're either moving full speed or standing still.

Oh, and there's no block button.

I am also not a fan of the character design in this game, either. Most of the cut-scenes make everyone look like blocky, clay beef hotdogs that were not designed with facial animations in mind.

And did the makers of this game forget they put the New Green Goblin in the opening sequence? He is seen being kidnapped alongside a bunch of villains, but he's never seen in the story again. You'll unlock him as a playable character unceremoniously after beating the game.

Speaking of the story (sigh), it was a cringe-worthy moment when it was hinted as to who was the main villain. I kept hoping they seriously weren't going there. But they did. And they didn't explain how he got the know-how to make himself evil minions. I think they must have wrote in Doctor Doom, then were told they weren't allowed him, so they said, "Hmm, who else is in Spidey's Rogue Gallery? Eenie Meenie Miney..."

And while you can play local-only co-op throughout the game, I must ask why is there always only two characters charging in to take on the world-threatening evil. If you have a dozen soldiers waiting to go into battle, wouldn't you send in a strike force larger than two? And Spidey is always one of the two. Doesn't he want a break? That was the one big flaw I had with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance as well. 20 characters, but only four at a time. And I blame the script writers on that one. They could write a plot that necessitated splitting the forces up to take on simultaneous missions in different locations, then let the gamer decide who to send where before letting them play through each one.

Anyway, to sum up this very long rant with the most offensive problem with Spider-Man: Friend or Foe... it's boring. Only five locations. And you're basically just fighting the same four baddies over and over and over. Next-Gen indeed. (Sigh)