Review - The Ascent... Up We Go

Image courtesy of Neon Giant

Blade Runner, Cyberpunk 2077, and to some extent... The Outer Worlds 1 and 2. These would all be works that could be found in the vein of cyberpunk, or at least possess some elements of the genre. The typical pieces are all there. Major distances between rich and poor, corporations in charge of various entities normally controlled by governments, and rain. You have to have rain.

    The Ascent tackles every one of these components in spades.

    In this newcomer to the cyberpunk scene, we play as an "indent" in the underbelly of Veles, a planet headed by several corporations vying for power over one another. An indent is short for an indentured servant. Similar to the origins of the term from colonial America's earliest days, indentured servants take on terrible contracts in order to get a one-way trip to a burgeoning community promising more. This is the story of Veles, and in order to claw our way out of the underground we have to work for a stackboss in charge of our specific district there. Poone is more than an indent, but somewhat less than a middle manager. He gives contracts to his underlings based on what is needed by The Ascent Group, the specific powers that be in charge of the arcology (or district) where you live. For some reason, however, The Ascent Group's board has gone silent and this means the power vacuum for the arcology has opened up. It's up to us to find out what has happened to the board as well as make sure that the specific people we want in play stay there.

The Good

The Ascent is a twin-stick ARPG similar to the play style of a Diablo-type. There will be plenty of swarms that are trying to keep you down, but also plenty of loot that can help you rise to the top... pun intended. The gameplay is where The Ascent truly shines. Combat is fun and fluid. I've never really been one for a twin-stick shooter, but somehow Neon Giant created a formula to make this genre particularly compelling. Combined with the powers that you'll receive from different augmentations and mods, in true cyberpunk fashion, the gameplay is explosive from start to finish. It also is a testament to game design in the fact that you will constantly find the side missions without having to really gallivant around inspecting every crevice. They pop up near you as you progress through the game, and that alone makes for a solid design in terms of keeping a strong momentum.

    Visuals are another boon for the game. They're not going to be the most stellar graphics you've ever seen, this is an indie title, but using Unreal's engine does a lot of favors to Neon Giant's 12-person team. The graphics are crisp, and the locations in particular are fleshed out to the point of looking like a true scene from a Blade Runner spin-off. That's not to say that The Ascent doesn't have its own flavor, because it does that well too, but it knows the niche market it was going for and homes in on it with ease.

    My favorite part, personally, is the soundtrack. Pawel Blaszczak sets the tone here with a fun and gritty bit of electronica that complements the setting perfectly. It is one of the only games that I have downloaded the entire score and listen to on a regular basis. It's genuinely a good one, and not just "good for a video game." The rest of the audio is good enough to land itself on the right side of the marker here, but it's nothing groundbreaking. There are voice actors and actresses who do what they're paid to do, and that's about it. Explosions sound like explosions, gunshots sound like gunshots.

The Bad

There's not much that is bad, per se, in The Ascent but that doesn't necessarily mean it's flawless, either.

    I think the main thing lacking in the game is a general coherence revolving around the plot. It's jumbled and convoluted, and that should never have been a problem with such a small team working on it. Instead of looking into fleshing the lore out as much as it was, it would have been nice for the narrative itself to see that level of commitment. Now that's not to dun the lore, because it really is great, but I still feel like there could have been more done to push the lore into the generic moments of the game instead of relying solely on the exposition dumps of a codex.

A Good Time

Overall, I believe that The Ascent is well worth your time. Clocking in just over 20 hours with having done every side mission possible, it's not a game that is going to suck every moment of your free time. It will, however, give you plenty to do and keep you guessing as you rearrange mods and weapons to best combat the flood of punks, robots, and feral beasts descending upon you.

7/10

Good Enough