An absolute blast from start to finish, The Ascent presents some of the most beautiful cyberpunk world design I've seen in a while. Every aspect of this game bleeds the verticality that its setting promises, from sprawling cityscapes to dingy, grimy sewer systems, the world comes out fully realised. The NPCs all ooze character, too, with Poone, nogHead and Kira being particular standouts.

Now, if you're here for deep RPG elements, branching paths, and the world to alter on your choices... That's not really what The Ascent is all about. There's a heavy focus on the "action" part, here. Mostly, you talk to dudes, get quests, and go murder people. And good L O R D is the murdering part good. There's an astounding amount of weapon variety from what I played with, from five-barrelled shotguns and rockets to a richocheting sawblade launcher (a little gift from a side mission), and tons of abilities to play with. There's a lot of variety here, but not so much build variety as the stuff you wanna work with.

Audio design is excellent, with a meaty crunch to most weapons. This is a game where you can turn people to chunks of red mist, and you really feel it when you do. The music, too, is pretty solid, though some of the combat audio tracks can loop a whole bunch if you're chilling in one area for a while. Particular shoutouts to the track hat plays when you have to defend an area for three minutes, that really gets the blood pounding.

Overall, and as a total package, this comes highly recommended from me. Every time the camera panned out to show more of the world it was flooring, and once the co-op gets a little more polished, I'd love to go through this again with my homies.

P.S: co-op is currently busted as hell. give it a few patches if you're planning on seeing it with your pals first, and wait for that to get cleared. this is a review as a single-player game.

An absolute blast from start to finish, The Ascent presents some of the most beautiful cyberpunk world design I've seen in a while. Every aspect of this game bleeds the verticality that its setting promises, from sprawling cityscapes to dingy, grimy sewer systems, the world comes out fully realised. The NPCs all ooze character, too, with Poone, nogHead and Kira being particular standouts. Now, if you're here for deep RPG elements, branching paths, and the world to alter on your choices... That's not really what The Ascent is all about. There's a heavy focus on the "action" part, here. Mostly, you talk to dudes, get quests, and go murder people. And good L O R D is the murdering part good. There's an astounding amount of weapon variety from what I played with, from five-barrelled shotguns and rockets to a richocheting sawblade launcher (a little gift from a side mission), and tons of abilities to play with. There's a lot of variety here, but not so much build variety as the stuff you wanna work with. Audio design is excellent, with a meaty crunch to most weapons. This is a game where you can turn people to chunks of red mist, and you really feel it when you do. The music, too, is pretty solid, though some of the combat audio tracks can loop a whole bunch if you're chilling in one area for a while. Particular shoutouts to the track hat plays when you have to defend an area for three minutes, that really gets the blood pounding. Overall, and as a total package, this comes highly recommended from me. Every time the camera panned out to show more of the world it was flooring, and once the co-op gets a little more polished, I'd love to go through this again with my homies. P.S: co-op is currently busted as hell. give it a few patches if you're planning on seeing it with your pals first, and wait for that to get cleared. this is a review as a single-player game.