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The ascent review5/9/2023 The attention to detail, right down to the garbage littering the streets is phenomenal. Environments are gorgeously put together and the world is chock full of NPCs. The Ascent is, still, a jaw-dropping technical showcase. This brings us to this version’s performance and visual section of the review. And I do think a fair amount of that original disconnect had to do with the launch performance problems. I was sucked more into the game and its world this time around than I was when it originally launched. Grenades too are on a cooldown so you can’t just spam these area-of-effect attacks (AOE’s) relentlessly.Īs traditional as the combat is, it is incredibly solid and well put together and, dare I say it, addictive. Augments range from health increases to being able to summon droids to help you in fights, all of which are governed by both a cooldown and the amount of energy you have. ![]() The game throws a lot of enemies at you, including boss fights which can be extremely challenging without some form of a plan. In combat, you can dodge roll, take cover and shoot over obstacles without having to blind fire. Weapons can be enhanced too, and believe me, you’re going to want to do that because The Ascent is quite challenging. But it does give you depth to the gameplay in the form of a character creator and its RPG systems, which include stat points to distribute on levelling up, augments to unlock and use and, most importantly, plenty of sidequests to take on. Gameplay-wise, The Ascent doesn’t do all that much different from other isometric shooters. Which includes a whole lot of shooting, gibbing, explosions and oodles upon oodles of collateral damage. Your contract is owned and you have no choice but to do as your told. You start off here, at the tail-end of this power grab. When The Ascent Corporation goes belly-up, it becomes a mad free-for-all for everyone else to try and grab what they can and pop themselves into positions of power with what’s left of The Ascent’s assets. As a new indent to The Ascent Corporation, you’re basically the muscle for anything your less than benevolent overseers want done. The corporations own everything, including you. All those shows and books you’ve read about how bad the future is going to be, well that’s The Ascents set-up in a nutshell. Set in a future where corporations run everything, including entire habitats and, possibly, planets, work has become slavery in everything but name. Which makes the game’s PlayStation debut for the PS4 generation of machines and PS5, nothing short of revelatory.īefore we get to that though, The Ascent is an isometric twin-stick action RPG shooter. Neon Giant have patched the game since then but the performance issues and long load times still exist, though to a lesser degree than before. And this was on an Xbox One X which, as near as I can tell, was running the game at its highest settings. ![]() Impressively long load times, constant frame dips, judder and hitches were all par for the course. The use of specular highlights on metal surfaces coupled with the stunning use of UE lighting, especially for all those wonderful neon signs and lights was nothing short of inspiring. The superb visual design and art direction, very clearly inspired by Ridley Scott’s classic Blade Runner, made The Ascent stand out starkly from the crowd with an impressive sense of scale that helped to make you feel like just another cog in the machine. Originally released on PC and Xbox machines – both One and Series – The Ascent was a magnificent visual tour de force of horizontal dystopian visual design, neon lights and particle-laden explosions. ![]() Back in July of 2021, developers Neon Giant threw out a cyberpunk adventure running on Unreal Engine 4 that kicked your eyes in the teeth with what is, I feel, one of the most stunning usages of Epic’s powerhouse engine in years with The Ascent.
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