You’re immediately able to swing freely from building to building, making great arcs in the air up the city’s wide avenues. Spider-Man’s Manhattan captures the paradoxical architectural vastness and relative geographical smallness of the actual island. Its world brims with elaborate set-pieces, and yet, like so many flashy blockbusters, it never quite finds the beat in its heart-pounding action.įor better and worse, Spider-Man is a meticulously rendered throwback to old Spidey films and games, to the last decade of open-world game design and to an easy style of superhero storytelling we rarely get to see anymore.Įven when fast travel finally unlocked, I would much rather get to my destination by swinging there It offers the thrill of swinging between astonishingly realistic skyscrapers across an uninterrupted Manhattan skyline, but also relies on relics of open-world gameplay that feel jarring and dated.
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