In many ways, I'd say it felt like a top-down version of The Division. Loads of scraps I'd get into featured me rolling about in vain, being shot by plain white bullets, and returning fire with my own equally plain white bullets. But I still had to be cautious - frustratingly so.Įnemies in The Ascent have this default mode: band together and shoot bullets. I mean, I had a roll, some big guns, and an augment which let me pulverise people with my fists all the ingredients were there. All signs pointed to this being a chaotic, run-and-gun, arcadey frolic.

Mostly in combat, when a bunch of enemies absolutely chunked my health bar and I felt a miffed by it. In this image the character shoots a laser, which is different from bullets! What a thrill!Īnd I said 'Oh' a lot with my time in The Ascent.

Perhaps later on in the game you get hold of guns that'll belch rockets and grow legs, but nothing in my brief hands-on felt remarkable: they shot bullets and numbers popped out of enemies. I mixed and matched between a revolver, assault rifle, submachine gun, and shotgun, all of which felt punchy, sure, but a bit too grounded for me.

In many ways, it was a lot more controlled than I was expecting. I also found it a bit disappointing that The Ascent's loud, abrasive universe wasn't home to equally messy combat. A shame really, not only because the conversations were often important, but because I thought the world they'd built didn't need to prove itself any more than it already had. I switched off immediately in these chats, because I didn't have the energy to wade through all the terminology. They were littered with jargon, to the point where most dialogue options I encountered boiled down to lists of questions like, 'Could you explain what you meant by 'Arcological Dick Protocol Z?'. The only slight nag I had with The Ascent's world lay in my chats with important story people. I presume the straps pull on your shoulders so when you shoot your gun there's less resistance. Much of which was locked away in this preview build, unfortunately, but I did manage to buy a nice backpack which made my weapon-spread a bit tighter, because that's how backpacks work. Here I could take on sidequests, buy armour, weapons, and tinker with upgrades. Sort of like the cantina from Star Wars, but in an alternate universe where it's enormous success had led to a 'Cantina Town'.Īside from lots of aliens lounging on sofas, The Ascent's 'cyberhub' (as I'm calling it) was a wonderful tangle of metal with plenty of vendors having taken up residence amid the pipes and cogs. I felt like I'd truly stepped into a believable cyberpunk space this colourful, rusty metropolis filled with dangerous, seedy sorts. From here, you can splinter off into the game's open world, and I'd say this was what impressed me the most, actually. I spent time with the first two hours of The Ascent, which was enough to graduate from shooting cybernetic pups in clanking tunnels, to taking on sidequests in the game's bustling hub space.

Top down block shooter