The Ascent Review – The Ascent Review – Mindless Mechanical Mayhem

The cyberpunk theme is familiar to fans, whether they are familiar with Philip K. Dick’s iconic work or Mike Pondsmith’s table-top RPG. Although the Ascent has a similar problem with its attempt to draw from twin-stick shooters and dungeon crawling RPGs, it doesn’t reach the same heights as either of these genres. The co-op is incredibly entertaining and offers a lot of gunplay as well as engaging cybernetic capabilities. There’s also a stunning world for you to create havoc.

Ascent is set in Veles, a tech-obsessed, technologically driven world. Players control an indentured worker who gets caught up in a mystery while they fight for freedom. While I enjoy the cyberpunk genre, The Ascent’s grating narrative contains all my least favorite tropes: incessant expletives, human rights abominations, and a profoundly bleak world. Those tropes aren’t inherently bad when handled with nuance, but the main story never dives into anything of substance, making those dark themes more set dressing than meaningful commentary. This is combined with confusing jargon, lore and dialogue and you find yourself wanting to skim through the dialog to return to what makes this game so great: making you a cybernetic fighter.

Combat is The Ascent’s main strength. You will find a variety of baddies coming your way in every second, making it thrilling moment-to moment gunplay. The fun is heightened by Neon Giant, a wide variety of weapons as well as some really cool augmentations that allow you to send your enemies flying. One of my favourite moments was blowing out corporate goons with a rocket-spitting Gatling Gun and finishing them off with an energy punch.

While most of the fights left me satisfied (if not overwhelmed, but more on that later), the combat grows slightly monotonous as the game goes on. An upgrade vendor allowed me to locate my favourite weapons and increase their power, making loot drops almost irrelevant. Your armor is also affected by this lack of variation.

The Ascent is a shallow RPG experience, with stats that don’t always feel purposeful. Although I enjoyed the health and energy boosts that the Ascent offered, some other options and the armor felt insignificant compared to the protection buffs. It’s hard to know what specific attacks you’re even trying to protect against. Because I was able to blaze through my enemies using the correct tactics and enhancements, I rarely paid much attention to fire protection attributes. This was particularly true in games where the onscreen chaos is difficult to follow.

You can enjoy The Ascent best in co-op. Up to four players can enjoyably play the majority of The Ascent’s 15-20 hour story. The bombastic fights are more manageable with a team alongside you, and the combat starts to sing when you’re synched with explosive weaponry and chaotic augmentations.

Although co-op may be the best part of co-op, there are many problems with co-op. A limited pool of health drops aided in my team’s demise, as the number of HP pickups doesn’t seem to scale to the greater player count. As player indicators merge in with the rest, it can be difficult to find partners around the globe. The large playing area makes this problem even more difficult. The other thing I dislike is how the progress is made. I jumped into a coworker’s game for a few hours, only to find my progress was utterly gone because I wasn’t hosting the match.

Co-op is the main draw, but solo players shouldn’t despair. Although I was spending half my time alone, the rest of it was enjoyable. Picking up health is easier alone, but I grew frustrated in many encounters as I was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies ­– it seems that the game was balanced with co-op in mind. These encounters aren’t impossible, but you’ll have to play smarter and plan your augmentations instead of the normal running and gunning.

The game’s other great strength lies within its presentation. Neon Giant has packed a tremendous amount of information into its world. The disgusting Veles corner is a delight, as its residents throw garbage on the dilapidated metal plates. The game’s lighting is equally beautiful if, at times, a little bit of a neon-soaked strain on the eyes. Also, the camera’s work is impressive. It moves beautifully and in a cinematic manner. Finally, the music hits a high mark, with clear callbacks to iconic sci-fi fiction of the past, such as Vangelis’ work on the original Blade Runner film.

While the Veles world is well worth visiting, there are some pitfalls. Although I appreciated the speed of travel, it was still too slow to get to my destination. I also found my co-op partners and I sometimes had the same objective, but our tracker would occasionally take us in entirely different directions. It also didn’t help that we’d consistently run into groups of overpowered baddies that would instantly shred us. Neon Giant rewards your curiosity with great loot. However, as the time passed I realized that exploring was less about fear and more because it offered me a chance to win.

The Ascent has issues, but those issues don’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the game. I won’t write my thesis on its commentary on capitalism, but I’ll fondly remember my co-op sessions where I tore through this cyberpunk world. The experience was hampered by the lack of narrative and shallow RPG elements. Neon Giant is a strong foundation and I am hopeful that future installments will be worthy.