With the recent success of Spider-Man 3 at the box office, the merchandisers have gone a little overboard. Right now you can purchase pretty much anything in a Spider-Man or Venom theme: lunchboxes, stationery, clothes, bedding, to name but a few. For gamers of course there was Treyarch's open world Spider-Man 3 tie-in. However, the merchandisers may have gone a little too far this time, because Spider-Man: Friend or Foe takes Spidey out of the normal context of his world, thrusting the web crawler and some of his most famous allies and enemies to a completely new story. Here you take control of Spidey as he joins forces to defeat a new menace.

The story finds an evil genius using pieces of meteorite that have strange powers to control some of New York's favourite villains, including Doc Ock, Sandman and even Venom himself. After being nabbed by Nick Fury, head of secret spy organisation S.H.I.E.L.D, our hero is told he must destroy the meteorite shards, breaking the control over each of his enemies. This leads to the rather bizarre recruitment of each villain, with the ultimate goal of defeating the mysterious evil mastermind. Unfortunately for our hero and his band of dubious sidekicks, the meteorite shards also conjure holographic enemies known as Phantoms, presumably in a desperate bid to take control of Spidey himself. These are the primary enemy throughout the game, with the exception being those characters you free from mind control.

In a break from the normally quite serious ponderings of Peter Parker, this game embraces the witty one-liners that Spider-Man is famous for, with Spidey at one point dismissively quoting, "With great power, great responsibility and all that. I got it already..." This really sums up the nature of a game clearly aimed at a younger market. Ultimately though, the story feels quite ridiculous most of the time, with the unusual affair of teaming up with your enemies only making the whole thing seem more distanced from an incredibly popular intellectual property.

What is most disappointing here though is the watered down gameplay. The game's six locations are a far cry from the usual Spidey scenarios and will see you fighting Phantoms in some strange locations including Tokyo and Nepal. Each locale has four stages to complete, with each containing some secret side missions. These are the same for each locale and involve you collecting some DNA-like tokens, finding a Keystone that opens a secret area and opening said secret area, which unlocks it as a Versus Arena. The problem with these collectibles is the complete lack of any challenge in finding them; all but a couple of the secret items can be found without leaving the beaten track, which is lucky because the linear format of the levels barely allows the player to venture off camera as it is.

Each stage is very linear throughout, with a set path leading you from battle to battle. Each one of these small skirmishes with a group of Phantoms will unlock a door or, my personal favourite, a bridge, which allows you to continue on so you can then fight another group to open another access through the level. This formula becomes so repetitive as you progress through the game that the developers have had to come up with new and ingenious bridge designs to add some variety. Who knew that Nepal had such over engineered and complex bridge designs?

Adding to the repetitive nature of the game are your primary opponents throughout, the Phantoms. Coming in three sizes - small, medium and large - your enemies never really increase in difficulty as you progress, but rather just increase in number. This doesn't really add to the challenge however, as the combo system used for fighting is set up to deal with multiple foes in easy fashion. The moves on offer are, in fact, one of the game's strongest points. There's a simple button system in place that allows you to string multiple moves and strikes together, never requiring more than three buttons to be pressed in a sequence. This means that from the very start you can pull off some stylish looking moves, with Spidey's being by far the most impressive. Although you can take control of any of the other thirteen characters once you've recruited them, none of them are anywhere near as fluid when fighting and ultimately aren't really a necessity at all. You can perform a team move by collecting the relevant power up though, which is found during each level, normally in a hedge or vase just waiting to be kicked. These moves are pretty cool to watch and have a devastating effect on your enemies, wiping the screen clear of all opposition.

Other power-ups include a strength increase and invincibility, both temporary, and can be found throughout levels in breakable objects. These include anything really, from crates and barrels to antique furniture and Easter Island style carved heads. Smashing these also reveals Tech Tokens, which are earned in increasing amounts by performing impressive combos in battle as well. At the end of each stage Spidey returns to Nick Fury's Heli-Carrier, where you can select your ally for the next level and, more importantly, buy new moves and level up.

The upgrade system is simple, with new moves available for Spider-Man himself. Some of the moves on offer are quite nice to watch too, offering abilities suited to each different class of Phantom. Character trait upgrades are also on offer, allowing an increase in strength, health and defence for each sidekick. There is also one extra move to unlock for all of Spidey's friends and foes. Unlocking all traits and moves would require multiple play-throughs however, and that will be a problem for most people.

The main thing that makes the prospect of replaying Friend or Foe so unsavoury is its weak difficulty. With no adjustable difficulty settings, the game needs a rising challenge that increases as you progress. Not only does it lack this, but the level at which its set would be hard pushed to challenge a ten-year-old. There are no lives, so falling off a rooftop or getting beaten by Phantoms simply costs you a few Tech Tokens to respawn. However, when you run out of Tokens you just continue to respawn endlessly - the game doesn't even force you back to a checkpoint, but merely respawns you right where you died in the middle of combat! This really lets the gameplay down and makes it ridiculously easy all the way through. The other problem is that, despite the facility, all the upgradeable moves aren't really necessary; you could easily complete the game using the basic move set, without switching ally or really struggling at all.

Graphically the levels are well themed and colourful, with the Phantoms also themed for each environment, but it isn't going to win any awards either. Character designs are cartoony and exaggerated, working quite well to highlight the individual look of each of Spidey's allies throughout the game. Overall the game has a very average appeal in its artwork and doesn't harness the graphical capabilities of current-gen consoles at all; in fact, it looks decidedly last generation. The soundtrack isn't much better either, with monotonous background music and very basic sound effects, the only saving grace here being the witty voice acting. The game is packed with humour through Spidey's sarcastic comments, with numerous interactions with your chosen ally at least bringing a slight chuckle to an otherwise very lacklustre game.

Also on offer for those who haven't given up already is the Versus Arena. No online play is included though, so unfortunately this is purely a place where two players can go at it against one another with the unlocked characters from the main game mode in a local match. This is quite disappointing without any kind of online features and will quickly grow tiresome.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a weak effort that shamelessly cashes in on the popularity of our web-slinging hero, with the gameplay obviously geared towards the younger gamer. Yet there is little here to challenge even the youngest player, with only die hard Spider-Man fans likely to get much enjoyment from this repetitive title, and even they will almost certainly find the experience wanting. With the entire premise being to fight a group of Phantoms, open a door, fight a group of Phantoms, raise a bridge, fight a group of Phantoms, and so on, the inclusion of upgradeable moves and abilities, a variety of sidekicks on offer and some exotic locations to visit just can't hide mask the repetitive, uninspired nature of the gameplay. Combine this with the complete lack of challenge or any online modes and extra features and you've got a very disappointing package that simply doesn't do justice to Spider-Man and that I wouldn't recommend to my friends or foes!

Reviewed by Ian O'Neill for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).