PSP World

Review: Spiderman Friend or Foe.

Greetings web heads and welcome to another addition of gaming with Quan brought to you by PSPworld and Gameflavor.com. Everyone was anticipating a Spider-man release for the PSP which was supposed be based on that that so called sequel Spiderman 3. Instead we have been graced with this cell shaded more cartoonist version of our favorite webbed superhero. To be honest I am glad they went the route of an original story instead of following the movie hype. So swing on by and stick to this review of Spiderman Friend or Foe for the Playstation Portable.

So you start off like any normal day, on the roof tops talking to yourself and than "BAM!" You are attacked by four of the worst villains you could come across, but than you get a welcomed helping hand by Harry Osborn. You are probably thinking right now, "How am I going to defeat Doc Ock, Sandman, Green Goblin, and Venom with just Harry Osborn on my side? Things can't possibly get worse." Than a horde of venom type clones attack everyone. So those clones teleport the baddies and your comrade Harry to some unknown place; so that leaves you surround. Spiderman has the best of luck because a shield ship hovers over him out of no where saving his neck.

Long story short, you’re working for Nick Fury now! You have a certain number of modes before you being your mission. You have the classic Co-Op mode, Map Navigation, Web Shop, Log where you view your collection, Mini Games, Auto Save option, and Mission Overview which grades your performance.

Let us discuss the game play shall we? So you start off each board with a partner. In the first level you are paired up with another vigilante BlackCat. As a single player you can switch between characters by pressing the shoulder buttons. You have your medium attack, strong attack, jump button and grab button. You can control the characters using either the D-pad or the Analog stick; however I prefer the analog stick since you need to move in a fluid motion. For the special abilities you would have to either hold down the triangle button for a strong attack finisher or the square button to perform a strong defensive attack.

The visual effects of the game were stunning surprisingly especially the character models, even though it has a kiddie feel to it. I mentioned the villains and one comrade earlier, but the other remaining cast members are Blade, Mysterio, Iron Fist, Rhino, Black Suit Spiderman costume, and exclusive to the PSP version is Carnage and Electro. I don't think carnage will be much of a team player if you know what I mean.

Unlockables are vast in the game. You go through the modes fighting robots and other baddies while collecting or rather breaking items to get these coins that you can use to upgrade the characters. You can also unlock mini games, art work and discover other fighting moves for your character. It does have a plat-former type feel. Compared to crash or Daxter where you break boxes, beat up bad guys and take on a big boss at the end of the level.

Co-op is one of the best additions to the game. Play the story mode with a friend or someone with the same game. Now this is what handhelds have been lacking for a while. I mean at least port the old co-op games of the passed or make some new adaptations of it. Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Battle Toads and Final fight were all great two player games. Friend or Foe kind of brings that back, but let’s just hope the other developers’ sees this as inspiration if this does well.

All things aside time to talk about the problems of the game. The game was a bit too short for my liking; it had potential to be longer. They should have turned this into a sinister six title instead of a semi goofy cartoon side game to spawn off the franchise. the enemies are repetative and not that bright, but it will not lose the essence of the game. However Sony needed to bring a Spiderman game to the handheld and it is all right.

All right true believers my final analysis on this web game, lets recap. So far we have good graphics, amazing gameplay, good story mode, a hefty amount of characters bad and good, loads of unlockables, co-op story game play, and your friendly neighborhood spiderman leading the pack. The only downside is that it's too short and it would of been better if they used the sinister six story ark, but they get cool points for doing an original storyline. So where is Wilson Fisk at? Any way I give this game 3.5 webs out of 5.