Spider-Man: Friend or Foe: Exclusive Interview

By Shawn White

The Spider-Man movie trilogy might be complete, but that doesn't mean the web crawler's game career has ended. With Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, publisher Activision hopes to combine the best moments of the movies with all-new scenarios into a single package - and this time, Spidey isn't alone. Players will have the option to team up with 15 enemies from the Marvel universe. The Wiire recently had the opportunity to speak with Producer Jamie Bafus about the game's characters, working with Marvel Comics, unique aspects of the Wii version and more. The Wiire: Describe your relationship with Marvel Comics. Does any of their talent help you in the development process? Do you draw inspiration from the Spider-Man canon when creating a new game? Jamie Bafus: We work very closely with Marvel on all aspects of our games, and they are an integral part of the entire process. We often work with Marvel writers and artists on our games to ensure we accurately represent the characters' attitudes, nuances, relationships, style, etc. Particularly with Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, we relied heavily on Spider-Man's history, who the characters are in his universe and his relationships to them, where they have been, etc. Since we didn't specifically follow the plots of the films, we had a lot of flexibility as to which characters we used and where they went but we also wanted to make sure the situations stayed true to the Spider-Man universe. The Wiire: How has the success of the Spider-Man film franchise changed your approach to developing a game around the character of Spidey? Bafus: In some ways it has made it easier; it has certainly broadened the audience and made him a more recognizable and popular character. In other ways, it's actually made it a bit more difficult to branch out and do new things with him. There are certain expectations that the mass audience now has for Spider-Man based on his movie experiences and this can make it really challenging to break away from and still give our audience what they want in a Spider-Man game. The world's most popular superhero? The Wiire: How many characters can players expect to see in this game? How many of those will be playable? Bafus: Including Spider-Man and the unlockable Black-Suited Spider-Man, you will come across 16 different characters and 14 of them are playable. The Xbox 360, Wii and PC versions have an additional bonus character, so 15 playable characters are featured on those platforms. The Wiire: How will the Wii version of the game differ from its counterparts on other consoles? Bafus: The Wii version of Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is essentially the same but it has the unique controls and an additional bonus character that is not found on the PS2 version. The Wiire: How will your team be making use of the Wii's controller? Bafus: One of the unique ways we use the Wii controller in Spider-Man: Friend or Foe's combat is with the finishing moves on enemies. After using a grab move on an enemy in combat, flicking the Wii Remote in a specific direction will actually modify the grab with an exciting result. Spidey and Venom team up to take down Doc Ock. The Wiire: How does your approach differ when developing for Wii as opposed to the other consoles? Bafus: Since Spider-Man: Friend or Foe really focuses on a younger audience, first and foremost we wanted the game to have simple controls and be easy to pick up and play and that was consistent across all of our platforms. We actually kept the Wii in mind when it came to creating the controls and the number of buttons we would ultimately use, and how we could translate specific moves to the Wii remote. It really helped us to simplify and keep the controls very straight forward and easy to pick up. The Wiire: What progress has been made since the release of Spider-Man 3 on Wii? Bafus: This is actually a completely different type of game from Spider-Man 3 and was developed by a different studio, so the Spidey 3 technology was not used on this title. Spidey and Doc Ock: unlikely allies? The Wiire: Why did you choose this particular art style for Friend or Foe? Bafus: We wanted to do something really unique for the brand, something that had a very accessible feel and was appropriate for the type of game we wanted to make. We chose an art style that we felt matched the style of combat -- light and playful -- and it translated well to all of the console and handheld platforms. The Wiire: If there is one question you would ask yourself in this interview that hasn't been asked yet, what would it be? Bafus: Which character from Spider-Man's universe would we have loved to get in the game but couldn't? Answer: Hypno Hustler. But we do give him a little shout out in the game. The Wiire would like to thank Jamie Bafus for answering our questions. Keep your Spidey senses sharp as Friend or Foe swings into its October release date.