Spider-Man Web of Shadows sends you through Manhattan at the request of S.H.I.E.L.D., an organization that is concerned about the growing number of zombie looters taking over the city. Well, story isn't this game's strong suit. No one really explains why you can summon X-Men and other various Marvel characters either. I wouldn't get too excited about that though, unless you get excited by gigantic Sandman and Xavier faces zooming out of the screen at you. It's more than a little lame.
Besides punching and kicking your way through hordes of characters, you also have the chance to talk to people and, based on the way you respond, build up points as good Spider-Man or mean Spider-Man. Well, they call them red or black choices, but really, I usually can't tell the difference between Spider-Man's normal witty remarks and the black suit's darker comments. It seems sometimes they just wrote a set of equally Spider-Man-like lines and then just assigned red or black suit points to a couple of them.
You get your standard skill leveling and special moves in this game. Again, Spider-Man's model is really well animated, and the basic repertoire of moves looks good. But get into some of the special moves and it makes you wonder why they even bothered. A dozen Spider-Man shadows blipping around the screen? It wouldn't look right even if Peter Parker were a secret ninja.
