Video Game Review - The Ascent

Rob reviews The Ascent on Xbox Series X...

The world of The Ascent is an interesting one. It's a sprawling cyberpunk world of corporate greed and slavery. One also filled with violence and plenty of backstabbing. If there was ever a game that felt like a cross between Diablo, Warhammer 40,000 and 2000 AD's Judge Dredd, then The Ascent is that game.

The story of The Ascent sees you play as an un-named "Indent" on the colony world Veles. Effectively sold into a life of slavery, you'll be taking on orders of your corporate sponsor to essentially either pay off your travel debts or die in the process. Due to Veles being quite an expensive world to escape to The Ascent Group employs plenty of "Indents", and as such is one of the planets largest corporate entities.

The main bulk of the game's story deals with the mysterious shutdown of Ascent's control of Veles. This causes the whole planet to go into turmoil as riots break out, and rampant gangs run amok. As such your created character is sent on various fetch and deliver quests as they work their way up the Ascent Groups business tower.

While the game introduces some creative and solid characters, its story isn't particularly interesting. Our character is a lifeless avatar that's thrown into a world that itself is teeming with life. You're a silent "nobody" who just meanders through life, shooting and looting whatever is necessary. It's a shame as developer Neon Giant has done an impressive job with both the worlds design and its background lore. 

The gameplay of The Ascent is very reminiscent of that seen within Diablo, albeit with twin-stick shooter controls. The action comes thick and fast as you'll be taking cover and firing back at your attackers. A cover system within an isometric shooter seems a little odd at first, but here it works well. You are frequently reminded to take cover and many of the areas of the game offer plenty of things to hide behind and shoot over. 

Enemies come in all shapes and sizes. These vary from lightly armoured mobs, to heavily armed combat mechs. There's plenty of things to shoot, but on occasion, it can feel a little too overwhelming. Your character can equip two weapons from quite a large pool. Weapons range from your traditional firepower such as pistols, rifles, shotguns. To the more exotic; rocket launchers, heavy machine guns. Armour is also in plentiful supply with each coming with its benefits and weaknesses. Your character can also unlock various perks too which heighten their combat and survival skills. There's plenty of scopes to build your character how you choose, and you're not penalised for trying out different builds. 

The only real downside to this is that the games menu system is pretty cluttered and it's not particularly clear where your cursor is. More often than not I ended upgrading the wrong skill, which essentially wastes a level-up. 

On occasion, the balance of the game can feel out of sync. You'll often stumble into an area that's not meant for your character at this time. The only real indication of this is when the enemies start shooting, which often ends in a one-shot kill. It's a real pain, as you are then treated to an un-skippable death scene to be thrown back to your last checkpoint. The Ascent can also be played online with the support of up to four players. While the inclusion of online co-op is great, the game feels as if it was built for this rather than solo players. It's fairly easy for a group to steamroller through locations, whilst a solo player is forced to somewhat guerilla tactics to survive. 

The visuals are arguably the games strongest points. The whole world feels very much like a sci-fi dystopia. The city itself is a sprawling complex of seedy sewage tunnels, rain-soaked plazas and bustling spaceports. Everything is just stunning to look at. There's a great sense of scale as nearly every area offers some incredible vistas of the towers lower or higher levels with plenty of neon billboards, flying transports, and other characters just performing their everyday tasks.

Regardless of its balance issues, I had a blast playing through The Ascent. Sure, it's designed more for co-op than a solo player but there's still a lot here to like. Fans of Diablo will feel right at home in looting and upgrading their characters. While it's not as in-depth, The Ascent will have you running about clambering for materials and credits. Even with its many fetch and deliver quests, the world is stunning took at, and it's incredibly easy to get lost. Just be careful of that high-end enemy waiting to send you crashing back to Earth. 

Rating 7.5/10

The Ascent is available now and can be purchased from the Microsoft Store by clicking here.

A code was kindly provided for this review.

Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev