Telokopolis Is Eternal (@[email protected])

absolutely loving [The Ascent](https://curvegames.com/our-games/the-ascent/). "oh, it's a game set in a big tower, just like that weird recurring dream Vyr keeps mentioning," hell yes it is, and the game does a fantastic job of conveying the massive scale and many-tiered verticality of the arcology it's set in. the levels feel *huge*. absolutely massive. there are stairs and elevators and lifts *everywhere*. and i'll frequently ignore the fast travel systems in favor of walking around to explore a bit. you can frequently see other areas of the map far in the background, and there's all sorts of structure and infrastructure visible as decorative environmental art below you or off to the sides: trains moving, hover-transports transporting, welders over the side of a chasm repairing a wall… the environment is oppressive but human at the same time: just when you think you've seen enough metal decking, things will open up into a busy starport or a noodle bar or a garage full of people working on flying cars. there are short ambient text conversations about ongoing events that you'll see if you stop for a few seconds near many characters, nothing groundbreaking but colorful enough that i've stopped for a lot of them. the radar and minimap are absolutely necessary and generally serviceable. the game does a good job of using marked upgrade item locations to show off parts of the map you may not visit otherwise, and i love it when they come with camera perspective control to orbit the central shaft with the big elevators or get up close and personal as you navigate a warren of apartments and small shops. also, it's a twin-stick shooter with optional couch/remote co-op play. two switchable primary weapons plus powers and perks (all of which can be more or less freely changed up from the pause menu if you have them in inventory) and an RPG-ish stat system with (expensive) respecs. there's cover and environmental explosives and i have definitely been using both of them. while i think the weapon selection could be slightly more interesting, i'm finally at the point where it seems to be opening up past just "assault rifle" and "clearly better and functionally identical machine gun". it's also starting to pressure me with enemy combat hackers and drones to give me a reason to use my cyberdeck for something other than opening locked doors and activating the occasional turret, and that's fun too. tactical abilities also need to recharge faster: i barely use mine, preferring augmentation abilities for emergency crowd control. expect to die a lot in the first few hours. and i think it needs some sort of catch-up system for co-op: @[email protected] joined me for two sessions and she was pretty far behind by the second one. combat's frequently over one way or the other before the buddy assist mechanic for downed players comes into play. tl;dr: good twin-stick shooter, buy it #TheAscent #VyrPlaysTheAscent