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> Results: Spider-Man: Friend or Foe
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Kids love Spider-Man because he's cool, he's definitely a good guy, but did you know he was rejected several times before making his debut? Why? Well, he's a bit creepy and what Stan Lee's old boss at Marvel didn't realize is that kids like creepy. With those eyes and powers, Spidey always looks like he could be a bad guy but under the mask he's just a nice guy nerd. Aside from the spider strength, webs, and costume, Spidey has one other thing going for him: the best rogue's gallery of bad guys this side of that guy in the bat suit. With no movie to promote this time Activision returns to the Marvel universe with "Spider-Man: Friend or Foe" an interesting little beat-em-up that almost lives up to it's potential.
First off, the game has a lot in common with Activision's excellent "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance," a game that spanned the Marvel universe and let you battle bad guys using a team of four of Marvel's finest. "Friend or Foe" as the same slanted perspective, slightly better or at least "more comic booky" graphics, and slightly enhanced combat controls. The plot is typically melodramatic, Nick Fury enlists Spider-Man into SHEILD (a Top Secret spy organization) to battle bad guys enslaved by a crystal. Spidey and a human or computer controlled friend have to fight an endless series of robots, or aliens (or whatever) called "phantoms". After beating up enough of them you can move on. At the end of each level is a famous Spider-Man bad guy. Beat him up to free him from mind control and he's suddenly willing to side with Spidey to beat the badder bad guys who enslaved them. At first Spider-Man can team up with less famous Marvel stars like The Silver Sable and The Prowler. Then The Black Cat opens up and pretty soon you can choose from the more hardcore baddies like The Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, and more. Each villain can be upgraded, has their own unique powers, and this feature encourages players to continue onward to unlock and control more and more characters. It's fun stuff, but ultimately boring. Despite the robust fighting controls, very little learned or actual skill is required to beat up these bad guys. In terms of combat, story, and amount of comic book geekery offered, "Spider-Man: Friend or Foe" pales in comparison to "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" but does have one thing going for it. These limitations, these flaws, make the game perfect for younger kids simply because they make the game easier than other games like this.  
"Spider-Man: Friend or Foe" lets your kids be the evil bad guys but they can't actually do evil things. Meaning, the bad guys are there to do the same thing Spider-Man is doing. Beating up the "worse guys." My kids enjoyed teaming up on the same console in co-op to bring the hurt and my wife and I were happy to see that the violence in the game (it is a "beat em up" after all) is less intense then most cartoons these days. The quality could be a bit higher, better artificial intelligence would lead to more interesting combat, but a game like this aimed at this age group is refreshing enough to recommend until your kids are old enough for more sophisticated comic book gaming.
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