About two thirds of my way through Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, I found myself clinging to the side of a Manhattan skyscraper. It was a nondescript office block – made of limestone and granite, a few streets over from the Empire State Building in the borough’s midtown district – illuminated by the low sun reflecting off the nearby Hudson River. I was between missions, and despite a new main quest map marker pointing me in the direction of Queens across the water, I was lost in the moment, peering into the cluttered workspace of an unassuming civilian on the opposite side of the glass.
