The game of Spiderman 3 was a direct movie tie-in and accordingly had to copy the film. But because its plot had all the consistency of a tramp's broth (and stunk just as bad) even the game was forced to take liberties with the story. It ended up full of ropey attempts to copy the onscreen characters and their locations but being pigeon-holed in to a crap film is of course going to make for a crap game. Freed from the majority of the film's confines, Friend or Foe is more of a blank page which can stick to the comic books and source material. Next Level Games have opted for a more stylised approach. Less is more and characters have a blockier, cartooned appearance, making them a lot more appealing. The environments are also a lot simpler in terms of colour palette and more varied in location.

Story wise, mysterious Phantoms have begun to appear around the globe following a meteorite burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere. It seems that meteor fragments have been harvested by someone who is using their power to create a personal army. With other superheroes and supervillains being kidnapped by the Phantoms, Spiderman is deputised into S.H.I.E.L.D. by its commander Nick Fury, before being sent to recover the fragments scattered all over the globe from Tokyo to Transylvania.

This means that for twenty stages Spiderman and a sidekick must punch, kick and generally smash up the Phantoms before beating the mind controlled supervillains in to submission. Friend or Foe’s twist is that once allies are found or key boss characters defeated, they side with Spiderman and join the fight. In single player an accompanying character is chosen between levels and controlled by the AI, although the player can switch between them and Spiderman at any time. Alternatively another player can control the second character via local co-op play. The only catch in both single player and co-op is that one character must be Spiderman, which is only fair given that it’s his game.

The developers deserve extra credit for introducing some lesser known hero characters in to the game like Silver Sable, Iron Fist and The Prowler, but the villains include the now standard fair of Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Rhino and of course, Venom. Aside from the superficial last minute use of the black spider suit and close approximations by the voice cast to actors like William Dafoe and Hayden Church, the biggest tie in to Spiderman 3 comes from the inclusion of the New Goblin. Having him and the Green Goblin in the same game totally bastardises any movie timeline and has obviously only been included because of the need to loosely tie it to the movie in the hope that it would encourage sales.

In practical terms there is very little to distinguish between the playable characters aside from a few different attacks, so it all comes down to personal preference.

Defeated enemies drop power ups like invulnerability, increased damage or smart bomb style combo attacks that allow Spiderman and his ally to boost each others abilities and wipe-out everything on screen. Enemies also drop Tech Tokens that can be used in between levels to buy upgrades for each character’s strength, power and attacks. Unfortunately the upgrade system is entirely superficial and the game could easily be completed without upgrading even Spiderman.

The game has clearly been designed as a title for younger audiences with the stages a highly repetitive mixture of basic combat, platforming and rudimentary boss fights. While there’s a nice sense of humour in the cutscenes and quips between the two characters during levels (even if they get old very quick), combat is simplistic and involves little more than hammering two buttons over and over. Very little effort is made to try and break the repetitive nature and there’s only so many times a player can go through the cut-scene sequence of doors out of an area being locked and Phantoms teleporting in before it starts to get very monotonous. In fact the only thing that really seems to change is the scenery and appearance of the Phantoms.

There is also the now obligatory attempt to extend the game by including an item collection element in the form of DNA helix canisters and Keystones. The first unlocks bonus art and the latter used to open arena’s for two player VS fights, a mode that due to the simplistic nature of the combat is nothing more than an exercise in who can mash the buttons the fastest. Collection is again simplified to the extreme, with the majority of items placed so that they stare you right in the face. In the odd instances where the placement is not so obvious it’s more to slow you down rather than trip you up, so there are no real stumbling blocks.

It’s difficult to be too hard on Spiderman: Friend or Foe because of its targeted age group. Even with its highly repetitive and simplistic nature, it ultimately wins out over the drivel of Spiderman 3 (the game) with its photography and bomb diffusing missions and boring plot. Friend or Foe is far more stylised, keeps things short and has no grand designs or illusions as to what it’s about. There’s very little to recommend it to anyone outside of its target audience, including hardened Spiderman fans, but here’s hoping that the developers take the style and run with it a bit harder to create a proper Spiderman title.