#The ascent walkthrough series
It was also surprising that Neon Giant used a pulse of the Impulse Triggers on the Xbox Series X controller to signal the recharge of Tactical Equipment, rather than weapons extinguishing their ammunition (like in Gears 5). This is, partly, down to them having no rumble patterns given the variety, weapons could really have done with some of the love that Insomniac bestowed upon Sunset Overdrive, making every firearm feel distinct underfinger. Whether you're holding a machine gun, precision rifle, rocket launcher, or multi-barrel shotgun, the weapons feel largely the same. At its worst, when you're getting caught on pieces of the environment or seeing absurd waves of challenging enemies pour in all at once, you'll find some frustration in death because of the way the game handles checkpointing and replenishment of equipment, energy, and HP.Īs fun as the gunplay can be, there's a surprising lack of weight to it. When you get the rhythm of the encounter right, the game quickly feels like a product of Housemarque, delivering the sort of highs and lows that you'd typically associate with Alienation or Nex Machina. It's here where The Ascent is both at its best and its most frustrating. It's in these areas where the difficulty spikes become a little unmanageable for solo players, more so than in online or couch co-op, as the screen fills with enemy variants and every inch of the environment becomes awash with ballistic and elemental gunfire. You'll need to think cleverly about opportunities like this, particularly as you approach boss rooms. If you duck behind some waist-high object you can squeeze the left trigger to tease your weapon up over it, staggering encroaching enemies and gathering yourself before the next wave is activated off-screen. There's real joy to be had in pushing into groups of enemies and kiting them around the isometric 3D spaces, quickly switching between your two primary weapons to deal out maximum damage and ducking behind cover when you need to figure out which of your cooldowns are ready to be unleashed – stasis grenades that hold enemies in place, an exoskeleton mech suit that can be summoned to give you some additional firepower, a barrage of micro-missiles that can be unleashed from your shoulder blades, or devastating melee attacks that rupture the ground around you.Ĭover provides added depth to combat too, as the left trigger can be used to introduce elevation to your shooting patterns.
It's a competent action-RPG, with tight twin-stick shooting and intuitive controls. How easily you're able to disassociate yourself from the driving forces of the narrative will likely define how well you get on with The Ascent. It doesn't help that the characters are all grossly unlikeable at best, and weirdly juvenile at worst – an early quest called 'Balls Deep' sets the tone for the type of storytelling that only a teenager could truly appreciate. As you set off between areas of the world at the command of caustic mob bosses and agency heads to put bullet holes in bodies, you'll be doing so for reasons that rarely make sense. Put a gun to my head, I wouldn't be able to recall a single plot point, character name, or acronym. While the game may look like something that emerged from the mind of Ridley Scott, The Ascent is more Bright than Blade Runner.
The characters entrusted to drive the main story forward – rare voices in a wall of disorienting sound – are little more than ciphers designed to deliver incomprehensible genre talk. Bounties can be handed in to shopkeepers, but they offer no further detailing to the type of villains running amok through the colony. A handful of NPCs will offer side-quests, but these routinely end without any real resolution. The animated bodies that occupy the streets and hubs of commerce pop in and out of existence and barely react to your presence, as if they are background actors paid only to compose themselves quickly should you shoulder-barge them and flee at the first sound of gunfire. The areas you navigate are densely populated but ultimately lifeless.
The problem The Ascent faces is that your only point of interaction with the world around you is with whatever gun is held in hand.
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