MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN TO HOST VIDEO GAME SIGNING AT LOCAL HMV World Famous Super Hero To Appear and Sign Copies of Spider-ManTM: Friend or Foe on Friday, 26 October, 2007 London, U.K. - October 25, 2007 - In support of his newest video game adventure, Marvel's legendary web-slinger will appear to meet fans and sign copies of Activision Inc.'s Spider-Man™: Friend or Foe on Friday, 26 October, 2007 at the HMV London store, located at Oxford Street.

An all-new adventure where a defeated arch-enemy can become an invaluable ally, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe challenges players to defeat and then join forces with notorious movie foes from the Marvel Universe including Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Venom and Sandman, as well as others from the classic Spider-Man family of characters. In the game, players will embark on a global quest to overcome an evil threat, by controlling Spider-Man and one of many Super Hero or Super Villain sidekicks, as they master unique fighting moves and styles while switching between characters to execute team combos and defeat foes.

For the first time ever in a Spider-Man game, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe features a unique co-op mode in which a friend can join the game at any time and take control of Spider-Man's sidekick as they battle through the game side-by-side and replay favorite levels. As the gaming experience unravels, Spider-Man and his sidekicks unlock a variety of arenas and secret areas containing special tokens which allow players to revisit previously explored levels at any time as well as fortify their cache of collectables, power upgrades and mini-games. Gamers can also replay levels as Spider-Man's darker, more mysterious persona, Black-Suited Spider-Man, and experience a robust Versus mode, with multiple arenas, where players match up any two characters and battle it out to see who wins.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
Control Link with your stylus as he sets sail for a new adventure in this follow up to Wind Waker.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC)
Take out the Strogg online.

NBA Live 08 (X360, PS3, PS2, WII, PSP)
The latest NBA game from EA.

NBA 2K8 (X360, PS3, PS2)
Ever notice these things always come in pairs?

Project Gotham Racing 4 (X360)
PGR returns for a fourth round of racing action.

RACE 07 - The WTCC Game (PC)
A racing game for the PC. See, I told you they come in pairs.

MLB Power Pros (WII, PS2)
Little big headed people playing baseball imported from Japan.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (X360, PC, PS2, WII, PSP, DS)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Crash of the Titans (X360, PS2, WII, DS)
Crash Bandicoot spins his way on to the 360 and a possible new career.

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (PSP)
Gabe Logan comes out the other side of a Dark Mirror and finds his own Shadow.

Hour of Victory (PC)
World War II gets another workout in this FPS.

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (X360)
We like the cars, the cars that go boom.

The Chosen - Well of Souls (PC)
Defeat the evil wizard and his hordes of monsters. The classics never die.

The plot of the game revolves around Mysterio creating an army of Phantoms using a piece of the Venom symbiote and then kidnapping Spider-Man's greatest foes, using mind-control to get them to battle the webcrawler despite the fact that in the opening cinematic of the demo they are all attacking him anyway. Apparently forcing villains to do what they were going to do anyway is abhorrent to the bad guys, and as Spidey frees them they join his side as playable characters.

The demo takes place on the rooftops of Tokyo, as Spider-Man teams up with either Venom or the original Green Goblin to keep Doctor Octopus from doing something silly, like destroying the city. As they travel towards their goal, the team is assaulted at various intervals by robotic-looking enemies, which must be repeatedly beaten until they explode. Simple enough. Killing robots and scenery nets them coins, health refills, and power ups like invincibility and massive damage that can be triggered using the directional pad.

At its heart, the game is a simple beat-em up. While there are plenty of combos available, most enemies are easily dispatched by repeatedly hitting X, while the boss battles in the demo both involved throwing things by picking them up with the B button. With a game this friendly to the button masher, mapping the character swapping to Y might have been a bad idea. Hopefully the final game will let you move this to one of the triggers so my giant snausage fingers don't get me killed anymore.

The graphics are generic at best. The cartoony Tokyo presented in the demo could be just about any other city if it weren't for the random neon signs with Japanese characters on them and the random giant bear in the background. While characters animate wonderfully, some of the models are downright hideous. Doc Ock's teeth in particular look as if they aren't even finished...just a line of white for the bottoms of the teeth with no actual front to them.

Over all my main problem with Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is the restrictions placed on the webcrawler himself. He cannot climb walls, despite that being one of his trademark moves. He can fall off of a building and die. I know they did the same thing in Ultimate Alliance, but it was understandable when he was just one of many heroes represented. In a game with Spider-Man in the title I expect something more like..well, Spider-Man. If you are going to put a wall in the way of Spidey, it better be a spiked wall that shoots fire.

Incidentally, at the end of the demo you are given a special code and instructed to enter it at FriendorFoeGame.com to get a special in-game item, but I cannot for the life of me find a place to enter text. Poo.

This is a game for children, or possibly the very hardcore Spider-Man fan interested in the interesting new take on the series. Activision designer Jamie Bafus has said that this game was made for everybody. After playing the demo it is abundantly clear that everybody doesn't include me.