The Ascent

I'm a sucker for cyberpunk settings. I love both of the Blade Runner movies as well as Akira. I also enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 and the old Shadowrun on the Super Nintendo. In fact, I would compare The Ascent to Shadowrun the most. Sure, Shadowrun is old as hell and the art direction isn't the same at all, but it is an isometric shooter just like The Ascent. They both take place in a typical high-tech, low-life dystopian world. They both have non-human characters that you can interact with. You get to roam around freely in a neon city environment. You can cybernetically enhance your character in both. They both allow the use of a variety of weapons; although the variety is much greater in the Ascent. They both make use of hacking; although, Shadowrun opens up a mini-game instead of the single-button press in The Ascent.

Cyberpunk Setting Perfected

An absolute win for The Ascent is the overall setting and atmosphere. It totally nails the cyberpunk aesthetic down to perfection. From the bottom, mutant infested pits; to the sterile clean cloud district, and especially the neon drenched middles. Everything you can imagine out of Blade Runner or Neuromancer, this game has it and then some. What I like most is the different alien races. It feels like the cantina scene from Star Wars but with cybernetically enhanced beings, heavy synthesizer music, and just soaked in neon and holograms. Same exact set of shady people, too. I love it!

Point and Click Action

The actual gameplay reminds me very much of SNES Shadowrun. I already mentioned the isometric third person view, but it also features a point-and-click style combat. I played The Ascent on PC, so it was literally point and click combat. You move your character with the WASD keys and place your mouse cursor on the enemy you want to blast and click to lay waste. It's helpful to think of it this way, but it functions more like a direction. So, if you shoot at an enemy you have your cursor placed upon, it will fire bullets in that general direction and hit anything in that direction. It's quite handy, and I suspect this is how it behaves if you have twin sticks. It's too bad there are no twin sticks on the SNES. You had to press a button to stop, open the cursor, move the cursor to the enemy, and fire while standing completely still. We've come along way these past thirty years!

Storytime

The story in this game is fairly typical, but still interesting. You start off as an intendured servant, and indent, working the bowels of the Veles. A particular group, The Ascent, controls it all but then experiences a catastrophic collapse. This triggers a dog-eat-dog frenzy of various corporations and gangs to fight for their own piece of the pie. You startoff as just a henchman for one of these ambitious corporate leaders. His name is Poone. Yes, that's really his name. You perform duties and missions for Poone until a mysterious YCorporation takes over your contract. You then have to complete missions for this corporation until you fulfill your contract and earn your freedom. None of the story exceptional. However, there are enough twists and turns to generate enough intrigue to keep you engaged. There's one particular plot twist that I though was clever, nothing even remotely Earth shattering, just clever.

It's a Charmer

I really did enjoy playing this game. It's not going to consume a lot of your time and it doesn't require much focus. You can just mindlessly perform quests and blast every gang member, robot, or mutant along the way and have a grand old time. It's not what you call deep, but it's definitely fun and the art is gorgeous to look at. I can safely recommend at least one playthrough of The Ascent.