Spider-Man: Friend or Foe promises to make for some awesome co-op fun when it comes out on October 2nd. We’re all huge comic book nerds here at 4cr, so we naturally jumped at the chance to interview Activision about the upcoming game. Join us after the cut as producer Jamie Bafus answers a few of our questions.

How have the Wii remote motion controls been put to use this time around?

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a completely different style of game from our other Spider-Man titles and was developed by another studio, so the Wii controls are very different. We wanted to make this game very accessible and the controls simple and appropriate to the action. One of the unique ways we use the controller in combat is for 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.

Where does the storyline fall into the established Spider-Man universe?

This is an original story, so it’s not specifically based on any one comic or movie storyline. However, it does bring in elements and characters from both worlds. Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is not intended to specific fall anywhere chronologically, it is another chapter in the Spider-Man saga. There are a number of familiar characters from both the films and comics and a few less familiar characters that the hardcore Spider-Man fans will recognize.

As cooperative play is a major selling point, has online support been put into consideration?

We did consider it but decided it wasn’t really a key focus for the target audience and type of gameplay we wanted to create for this title. Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is the kind of game that is much more fun to sit next to a friend, sibling or child and play side-by-side.

Can you explain how co-op will work? Can we expect team combos?

In Spider-Man: Friend or Foe’s single player mode, the sidekick character is controlled by AI and will assist you in combat, but not necessarily do all the fighting for you. AI will perform some team moves and assists but this is much more of a two player feature. You can certainly set up team combos in single player mode, but it requires more switching between characters on the fly. When two players are together they can set up aerial juggling moves, team finishers, hold an enemy in place so the other player can get some hits in and use their special abilities to set up some pretty devastating team attacks. We’ve actually seen kids in our play tests creating their own team combos by having one character throw an enemy at the other character while doing a special attack. Gamers can play as cooperatively as they want or be more competitive and fight for who gets the power ups, extra health boosts and the last finishing hit.

How much research goes into character background and deciding on which move you’ll be using for a certain character?

We spent a lot of time researching the various characters for Spider-Man: Friend or Foe like who would make the best sidekicks in combat, what their special abilities would be, etc. It was actually a really fun part of the process pouring through the comics, reference books, online sites and just tapping into our team’s collective knowledge of the Spider-Man universe. Once we came up with the final list of desired characters, there were several revisions to the special abilities list and what made the final cut. As you can imagine, some special abilities sounded much better on paper.

Has Marvel been directly involved with the game development process?

We work very closely with Marvel on all aspects of our games and they are definitely an integral part of the process.

Have you had any technical challenges with the Wii?

No, not at all. Since we developed this game for both current and next gen platforms simultaneously, we specifically designed for the various systems’ strengths and weaknesses so we didn’t have any issues with that.

Are there any future projects that we can look forward to?

Absolutely, but I’m not allowed to tell you about any of them today!