A couple of people have asked me for my opinion on Web of Shadows, so here it is. I haven't finished the game yet, but I spent a good 4 hours or so playing it, and according to some I've seen most of what the game has to offer, which, in a nutshell, is fighting, lots and lots of fighting. And of course the requisite web-swinging.
The web-swinging feels a lot like Spider-Man 2's, with slightly different controls, and slightly simplified, though not nearly as much as Ultimate Spider-Man's were. The big sticking point (pun intended) is that Spidey's webs don't actually attach to anything when swinging, which is kind of a bummer, because I sort of liked using the buildings as a tether, it made rounding corners and such feel intuitive and realistic. You still need buildings to use web-zip, though. Of course the upside is that getting around areas without a lot of tall buildings is no longer a hassle. When I heard that the webs don't attach to anything I was initially very bummed out, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, mostly because you don't really notice most of the time unless you're paying attention. And I feel I need to mention that the web-swinging is a little... random. Sometimes it just won't attach to anything when there are no buildings around, like when you're on the top of a tall building, and sometimes it will. It's weird, it's like, why didn't the just make the webs attach to the buildings in that case? But it's not a huge deal.
Overall I prefer Spider-Man 2's web-swinging, which was about as perfect as it could possibly be, but it's still pretty good in this game.
The most critized part of the game is usually the repetitive nature of the mission structure, and on this point I kind of have to agree. I mean on one hand there isn't much you can do as Spidey besides swinging and fighting, and the previous games have kind of proved that missions outside of this mold usually weren't very fun, but it's still a bit disappointing to see that pretty much every mission consists of you fighting dudes or occasionally getting somewhere within a (lenient) time limit. There are optional missions as well, but they are pretty much MMORPG-like kill quests and don't amount to much. Don't expect anything special out of the game's open-world structure, basically.
The story hasn't really taken off for me yet, but I'll be curious to see how all the symbiote stuff plays out. Graphically, the game is kind of sparse. It looks like a HD version of Spider-Man 2, kind of. Major characters look nice but the city lacks character and charm a bit.
If you're a huge Spidey nut like me and you liked Spider-Man 2 a lot but thought the follow-ups were disappointing, I think this game is worth getting, depending on how many games you were already planning on buying. I realize this holiday season is crowded as fuck, and this probably isn't the best game to buy, but it does scratch that Spidey itch, and it's certainly not bad. At the very least worth a rental.
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