#THE ASCENT FAST TRAVEL FULL#

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. There is lots of profanity although most is in subtitles as alien gibberish often substitutes voice acting.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. Although the color scheme (lots of glowing red and heavy shadows) of many areas somewhat masks it half the time, some areas late in the game particularly a white office complex emphasize the carnage.

Civilians will very frequently get in the crossfire with no penalty for collateral damage. The game is heavy on blood and gore even with the eleveated perspective, with a slightly upgraded pistol being able to dismember or bisect targets. It just makes one appreciate how concise the levels and mechanics of Ruiner were. The RPG machanics are shallow, the side quests are poorly paced, unimpressive and require too much backtracking in a game where navigation is a cumbersome chore with no mini-map, a lousy maxi-map, overly spacious areas, limited movement options, 'fast travel' where the load times are longer than it takes to walk to your destination (God help you if youre playing on base Xbone). There is just no reason for this game to be as long as it is (20+ hours). However the game suffers from serious bloat compared to its leaner (5-6 hour) bretheren. Sure the interactivity is quite low (no jumping, no police, etc) but given games like CP77 that have the AAA stamp and still disappoint this is a treat.

#THE ASCENT FAST TRAVEL FULL#

A fully 3D rendered high-res open world full of bystanders, enemies and mayhem with 4 player LOCAL and online co-op that happens to be in style of Hotline Miami and its cyberpunk cousin Ruiner. Its very impressive what a visually stunning world this indie studio created.

The ascent fast travel