Navigating the city is as simple as swinging through the air via the right trigger. It’s easy because you’ll want to do it a lot. Flying through the air feels so incredibly liberating that it’s no problem to ignore the story for a good hour or so while you explore the gorgeous cityscape. This game gets that feeling of slinging right on every level. Spider-Man can perform a myriad of different aerial acrobatics, including wall-running and bounding from building to building. Walking up to a building will prompt him to crawl up its side.

We all know what comes with taking a stroll through the city: bad guys. When faced with villains, Spider-Man can perform a wealth of moves. Tapping X will melee the fire out of those poor saps while Y will perform a web bounce, which is a successful method to chain combos together for more points. The B button will sling sticky shots of web at villains to damage and slow them down a bit.

Fighting feels very smooth and balanced, but the amount of combos Spidey is able to achieve is ridiculous. In the first ten minutes of the game I had unlocked three achievements for simply pressing X and receiving a 100, 150, and 200-hit combo bonus. It lends a bit of hokey feel to combat, though it is fun to press X over and over and watch the baddies scatter. You can also switch between Spider-Man’s trademark red and blue suit or the black symbiote suit at will with a click of the analog stick. However, this makes no real difference other than the fact whichever suit you happen to be using will gain more experience points for an upgrade. Upgrades are your typical action game fare: strength, health, new combos, and all of those lovely additions. Fighting is never really difficult, as villains don’t see fit to block often and enjoy standing in one spot while you pummel them to death.

That’s certainly a good thing, because the camera angles in Web of Shadows are God-awful. While pressing the left trigger will cause Spider-Man to deploy Spider Sense and lock-on to potential threats, using the power is downright detrimental to the gameplay. The camera will randomly swing toward the next "new" enemy even if you are faced with one just inches away. This leads to taking a cavalcade of unnecessary damage because the camera refuses to stay trained on the REAL threat in front of you. Similarly, climbing buildings can be a headache-inducing, dizzying experience due to the fact that the camera wants to point forward no matter which way Spidey is facing. On the off chance you want to go hunting for bonuses, this makes searching a pain since the camera often refuses to cooperate and leaves you wishing you had stuck to swinging through the city rather than stopping to play through the actual game.

As I mentioned earlier, the city is actually quite stunning. A full variety of different skyscrapers, apartment complexes, parks, and even statues abound, ensuring there is never a dearth of ground for Spider-Man to cover. Environments are clean and crisp with no loading times save for between missions and as the game constantly auto-saves when a bit of progress is made. The sky is appropriately ominous during pulse-pounding battles set in a deep shade of crimson, and sunsets/sunrises are gorgeous. It’s obvious a lot of time went into level design, as it shows. However, the voice acting accompanying such luscious graphics is, well, embarrassing at times. While it’s obvious they didn’t get Tobey Maguire on to play the role -- even though many fans now associate his voice as Spider-Man’s -- the actor that was chosen is painfully awkward and strange. He delivers his lines with the aptitude of a YouTube actor-hopeful. While he does occasionally hammer out the solid one-liner, much of his dialogue comes across whiny and incompetent, both of which we know Spider-Man is not (for the most part). Aside from a mousy performance from Spider-Man’s voice actor and weak lines from several other characters, we have the music in Web of Shadows to thank for scoring battles appropriately and in a manner relevant to the world of Spider-Man we know and love today.

Bottom line? Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is nowhere near perfect. In fact, it could have stood a bit more time in development to fix the atrocious camera angles and uninteresting mission structure. However, with what’s presented, the game is fun in short bursts. It can easily be completed in 10-12 hours or even quicker if you don’t need to be drilled on controls and game mechanics. At its suggested retail price, it’s most definitely not a buy, but hardcore Spider-Man fans will eat it up as it is arguably one of the best entries into the franchise so far. Rent it or borrow it, and give it a chance. Perhaps it’s you who will be able to break nerdy Peter Parker out of his nerdy shell with your superior gaming prowess.