At its heart, this game is a children’s game. I’m not saying it can’t be enjoyed by an adult, but for those older gamers
In the graphics department, Friend or Foe is by no means photorealistic nor is it that blurry cel-shaded mess that the X-Men legends were. In this game, all the characters are fluid, nicely rendered and pretty good detailed caricatures of their movie/comic counterparts. There are about 15 well known to lesser known heroes and villains in the game ranging from Green Goblin, Venom and the Rhino to Silver Sable, the Prowler and Iron Fist.
The levels aren’t the locales you’d usually find Spider-man in which add a bit more variety to the game but pretty much every level is constructed the same. You’ll enter a large arena type area, beat a few baddies and then trek off to the next area. Speaking of baddies, besides the Spider-man foes, these Phantoms created for this game do look good but there aren’t enough variations of them to spice things up by the end of the game. There are four general types and each one has numerous skins (and powers) as the game progresses but still, you know you’re fighting the same creatures over and over again.
This game isn’t rated everyone for no reason either, F.o.F. offers a simple combat scheme that works well in capturing the feats that Spidey pulls off in the comics or movies. Defeated foes leave behind tech tokens and this in game money can be spent beefing up Spider-man and his sidekicks. There are also a few different power-ups that you can use to become invincible, stronger or do a tag team attack, but the game never gets difficult enough to make those items a necessity. Being Spider-man’s game, Spider-man has by far the largest move list making him the most fun to play as, and unless you’ve been aching to play as a certain character, switching between the two in single player mode isn’t necessary.
This brings me to my main complaint about Friend or Foe; it’s simply too simple. Sure the graphics are more than adequate, the combat moves are easy to pick up but that’s it. The sidekicks are pretty much useless unless a friend decides to join you. Maybe if they threw in some puzzles and had characters transport in and out of the game as needed, the game would have been a little more interesting, but as it stands, this game is just a simple brawler from start to finish with nothing new added to the mix. Another spot this game deserves a bit of praise in is the sound, more specifically the voice acting. The dialogue is often times at least witty and the voices are well acted out. Throughout the whole cast of the game, there’s simply not a weak link. Everyone sounds like they should and every character acts like their comic counterpart. Other than that, this section gets my usual saying that if music doesn’t make me punch the screen and in fact, if I don’t actually notice it, it’s good to me.
To be honest, if I would have seen the rating or read some reviews before hand, I probably wouldn’t have bought this game. It’s not that Spider-man: Friend or Foe is a bad game; it’s just aimed at a specific audience. At its heart, this game is a children’s game. I’m not saying it can’t be enjoyed by an adult, but for those older gamers, it leaves much to be desired.