Ascend

Ascend is one of the better concepts I’ve come across lately and even in its very early stages of development there is a good deal of potential to see in. In short, it’s meant to be an online first-person arena shooter with parkour and speed run elements.

There’s no denying that with a core like that to build on and around, you can get something really good. However, the guys over at Gamers Frontier have a long way to go.

Imagine running on a wall as you’re blasting opponents with a high caliber gun then generate a kinetic force field while you swap to a sniper rifle and then jump,run and strafe upwards, reaching a rooftop to get a better vantage point and headshot the first person you see.

Once the game reaches the optimum amount of polishing, stuff like that will be possible and excellent to do. Fast-paced shooters such as Quake and Unreal Tournament are still fantastic but having that kind of gameplay with the added feature of parkour mobility would really spice things up.

Ascend is far, really far, from stepping into the footprints of the aforementioned giants but I’ve had the fortune of testing it out with another player, and it went really well. The parkour does wonders when you want to escape heavy fire or for instances when you want to catch your opponent by surprise. The strafing mechanic is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

At this moment, since Ascend is in early development, I’m not sure if they want to stick with the minimalistic look for the game but it does suit it well, especially when the guys are aiming for the cyberpunk feel.

Looking into the details you will see a few mishaps, and you might get stuck into a wall of you jump at a wrong angle. Weapons design is interesting but they do need a lot of work in terms of details and recoil. Nonetheless, Ascend is on a good path because the most important aspect to it, gameplay, works really well.

On a closing note, Ascend is worth your time even in early development. It won’t keep you there for hours on end because chances are you won't have anyone to play against but you can test out the mechanics and maybe invite a friend or two for a short brawl.

You can follow development for Ascend by following their Twitter account.