So how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows different from recent Spider-Man releases?
Well, you can see from the trailer, New York has been invaded and S.H.I.E.L.D. has declared martial law. Luke Cage is uptown gathering heroes to repel the invaders, while the Kingpin's holed up in his Midtown stronghold gathering villains. It's up to Spider-Man to find out how he's going to repel this invasion.

What are some different things that we can expect as far as game play?
We've given the player more control over many aspects of the game. If you approach this situation heroically, it will be reflected back on you—so if you're being a good guy, the citizens of New York will cheer you on; if you take the "by any means necessary" approach, the people react to you accordingly. And as you encounter all these heroes and villains in the city dealing with the same problem, what you've done up to that point will affect whether these people are for you or against you.

So the game is…absolute chaos?
There's a story arc, so it kind of builds and crescendos at certain points.

What exactly constitutes "by any means necessary"?
We want you to be able to start a fight on the ground, battle a guy all the way up the side of a building, wind up on the rooftop, and fight in the air, so we've redone the entire combat system. It gives the player a lot of freedom in terms of what they are able to do and who they're interacting with. We really wanted to take advantage of the verticality of the city, so our combat designers called this the "most 3-D game ever."

Are the web-swinging mechanics the same?
[Everything in the trailer] is in-game footage, not precut scenes. So as you can see, the completely rebuilt city looks pretty amazing; and you can swing all around Manhattan with the same swinging mechanics as before. We just continued to improve them. People really love that from the Spidey games.

What else distinguishes Web of Shadows?
It's not based on the movies, so it's given us freedom to bring in elements from the comics that we're either fans of, or that we think will help maximize the game play. So you're not just beating up thugs—there's lots of heroes and villains, and some of them are pretty well known, while others will just be fan favorites.

Did you bring in any comic book writers to contribute ideas?
We did…but we're not revealing that yet.