"Spider-Man: Friend or Foe" Preview
Marvel has posted a news story on the upcoming Spider-Man video game, which actually looks pretty sweet. For those that haven't been keeping up with the Activision-produced Spider-Man games of the past few years, they are a cut above the usual comic-video game quality and get better with every release. Amid the typical Marvel, overhyped language in the blurb (where they assure us it will be a "sure-fire hit"... we will be the judge of that, Marvel!) is some info that gives us a real idea of what this game is going to be about.
Cool thing #1: Spider-Man FINALLY gets pulled out of New York city for a video game. It really is about time. Now this is a bittersweet pill really because lets face it, NY city is as much a "character" in the Spidey canon as any other character in the franchise is. However, every Spider-Man video game was getting very redundant in setting, and how that setting influenced the mechanics and feel of the game. Pulling Spidey out of the skyscrapers and into Tokyo and Nepal is going to do wonders for injecting some fresh gameplay into this sequel, at the very least giving us a different color palette to look at. It's like the obligatory Spider-Man issue every couple of years where he finds himself out in the middle of nowhere with some villain and no buildings to swing from.
Cool thing #2: Villains are playable. Although there's only really two or three Spider-Man villains even remotely cool enough to really want to play as, it's still a welcome twist. Doctor Octopus alone presents a lot of interesting control and gameplay possibilities, while I'm sure Venom is just a mirror image of the typical Spider-Man gameplay, with some "evil" moves thrown in perhaps. Not sure if anyone is going to care one way or another about playing the Rhino... I mean, he really only has one move. Rounding out the announced stable of villains are the usual suspects of Green Goblin, Scorpion and Sandman. On a totally tangential sidenote, with the Spider-Man villain stable getting extremely stale, why don't they find a way to bring back Kraven? Oh, forgot to mention a couple of B-grade heroes are also playable in the form of Iron Fist and Blade, not that anyone really cares about them. All told, a total of 13 Marvel characters are playable in the game.
For those of you out there who have actual, physical friends, there will be a two-player co-op mode, which is always sweet. It also has a versus mode, for when you get really tired of that friend.
Expect to see the game hit stores on October 2nd. This sounds like the best Spider-Man game released to date, which is saying quite a bit given the quality Activision has put into these releases over the last few years.
