THE ASCENT

The world's adoration of isometric action/RPG's is a given. From the first Diablo to nowadays, dozens of variations of this beloved formula have been released, with the one that has maintained the most interest in recent years being Path Of Exile, due to its free-to-play nature of course.

Wouldn't a similar action/RPG set in a cyberpunk setting like Blade Runner be a great idea? It certainly would be, so keep waiting. Because Swedish Neon Giant's The Ascent is not that kind of game. It's a pure shooter, twin-stick as they call them in my village, which just adds a few RPG touches. Namely, some extra stats than you'd find in a game like Chaos Engine (if you don't know what that is, google is your friend), random loot of a limited nature and a rudimentary story. That's one step above the average for the category.

You could say it's slightly disappointing that The Ascent isn't an action/RPG of this nature, or rather, an RPG made by Larian or Owlcat. The reason is the fantastic world that the folks at Neon Giant have created. The planet Veles, on which the story takes place, is lifted straight from the pages of Philip K. Dick's books and Ridley Scott's camera. A dystopian and eerily bleak world, covered only by vast darkness and neon lights, with its inhabitants of different races and species living in harmony (?) under the boot of the powerful Ascent Group, which acts as the ultimate ruler of the planet. Ruler in every area, whether administrative or financial, with its hard workers (indent as they are called) being a modern version of slaves, with little to no rights.

However, the Ascent Group, for unclear reasons, declares bankruptcy, which literally collapses the society of Veles. The consequences of such situations are predictable: chaos, anarchy and the start of a bloody war between other companies and criminal gangs to see who will win the reins of planetary governance. Somewhere there is the introduction of our silent indent hero, whose characteristics and gender are chosen by us in order to put an end to all this. His only qualification is his capacity for hundreds of murders. After all, this is the strongest asset of a homo sapiens in a headless society like Veles now is.

The development of the plot does not claim any Oscar award, on the contrary, it seemed a bit confusing and superficial. After all, most, if not all, missions assigned to us by our various employers have as their common denominator to go to a certain place, shooting any fool who dares to stand in front of us. So our role is purely mercenary, but for a twin-stick shooter game, it's more than enough.

In there, The Ascent succeeds brilliantly. The action is intense and sometimes stormy, and it's notable that with the "rush in and hit the bull's-eye" tactic, we can't get very far. As much as it may not seem like it at first, the game requires the player to approach battles sparingly and with proper cover. Besides, there is a separate button for cover, which helps in several situations, but by no means a panacea, as our opponents do not miss the opportunity to flank us. An interesting mechanic proves to be the fact that we can use a button to raise the barrel of the gun up, both to allow us to shoot when we are behind cover and to aim at the head of taller enemies.

Especially in the early stages of the game, where the hero is quite weak, the use of cover is considered imperative. After a few hours of progress, however, things take a different turn, with our hero becoming significantly stronger. The main reason is the rich equipment found during the adventure either from defeated enemies (e.g. bosses or semi-bosses) or from chests, combined with the classic levelling and various attributes. Equipment involves three body parts (head, chest and legs), the use of augmentations/modules and weapons.

Particularly the weapons have been given quite a lot of attention by the developers, having a good variety of types, such as assault & submachine rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, while there are some more with limited uses like frag or shockwave grenades and some other more... extreme ones. All of these can be bought in stores, but every weapon and armor has exactly the same predefined attributes, no matter where you get it.

Therefore, there is no particular reason to loot endlessly as we would do in an ARPG, hoping to find a similar weapon with better stats. The only thing we can change on them is, after collecting enough components (basic, advanced and superior), to upgrade them through local vendors. Of course, the double and triple weapons we will inevitably acquire can later be mock-sold, a tactic that may yield enough funds to invest in more augmentations/modules.

While we can equally collect them as we wander, augmentations are a game-changer in battles, while any indiscriminate use of them is limited by our energy level (something like mana). It's possible to carry up to two augmentations at once, ranging from powerful melee strikes and huge laser beams to deadly mechanical spiders. Particularly in the latter stages of the game, where the "bad stuff" happens, choosing the right augmentations can make the difference between a crushing defeat and a triumphant victory.

On the other hand, the modules have a complementary role, obviously fewer options available than the augmentations, but they also enhance our hero in their own way, such as slightly increased health or teleportation instead of the simple tumble that dodge represents. Among other things, a hacking mechanism exists, which is rather simplistic and its performance depends on the Cyberdeck items we've spotted up to that point, their rarity being an enough reason for more exploration.

However, as well done as the shooting part is, The Ascent has some issues that slightly alter the overall picture. The biggest flaw, which we'd say is more of an annoyance than a problem, is the distances you need to travel at any given time, coupled with the fast travel system using taxis. So get ready for a lot of walking until you reach each objective, often passing the same areas over and over again and shooting the same enemies. Fast travel is supposed to fix the backtracking issue, but the game doesn't allow you to travel to any checkpoint you want, no matter where you are.

The reason is that the planet Veles is divided into five major zones, which cannot be directly reached by taxi or metro, but only in between their individual sections. So we will necessarily have to take our little feet to the relevant exit in order to get to another zone. It's a strange decision, which may be somewhat justified by the game's lore (pleb taxis are not allowed to visit the area of rich bourgeois), but practically all it achieves is to tire the player with even more boring walking.

Walking that, especially in the early stages of the game, is intensified by the implementation of side quests. Undoubtedly, side quests are a great way to quickly multiply your money and xp, while having a fairly simple and clear structure (they are basically fetch quests). Except that many times the way to get there is blocked behind progress-blocks of the main quest, which we don't have the slightest information about. Not even such a tiny note.

Consequently, it is very likely that we will undertake a low-level mission, spend five to six minutes of boring hiking, only to find that our objective is ultimately located in a zone that we cannot access until after the middle of the game. This strikes us as somewhat of a poor design, and hangs out with the implementation of the map and minimap, which certainly should have had clearer visuals, as they confuse rather than clarify things.

However, in fact The Ascent does not suffer from very serious issues. Its battles are enjoyable, frenetic and appropriately difficult, with the exception of the final missions, where it goes overboard with the plethora of enemies. It's as if they ran out of ideas and chose the easy solution of plenty of difficult enemies attacking us all at once. However, with the co-op option (either online or locally), the fun skyrockets exponentially and you probably won't mind that decision at all. The game is first and foremost a shooter and it's not at all ashamed of that.

On the contrary, it shows it off thanks to its impressive technical aspect, being a feast for the eyes with excellent colours, shading, animation and physics. Especially if you have a GPU that supports ray-tracing, get ready to witness one of the most well-implemented games of the genre. On our test system (i5-4670, 16GB RAM, 1660Ti), we didn't have the chance to test it, but playing in DX11 mode with all settings at maximum, the game performed very well. Exceptions were some frame drops in crowded areas (like in Cluster 13) or some stuttering that occurred every time we visited a new zone, which are a relatively common issue for games "wearing" the Unreal Engine 4 engine.

Special mention should be given to the soundtrack by composer Pawel Blaszczak, which is incredible. Without being a huge fan of electronic music, I couldn't get enough of listening to the inspiring melodies of the aforementioned gentleman, while the atmosphere created by the synthesizers make for a real music gem. At times, it reminded me of the themes we used to listen to in the Amiga era and this can only be rated as a positive thing.

To sum up, The Ascent is a decent and well-crafted twin-stick shooter, especially in co-op mode it can release huge amounts of adrenaline. It may not avoid the flaws and shortcomings that would give it an even higher rating, but if you're looking for an action game that will keep you fully entertained for about fifteen hours, you need look no further.