Not really, they’re all self-contained. That said you should play Professor Layton and the Curious Village, it’s quite good and has a high quality remaster on mobile phones.
The studio behind this one (Prophecy Games) is independent from them now, but still contains some developers who also worked on Ascend. I know from hanging around the forums at the height of that game that there was at least 2 headstrong devs in the company that legitimately wanted to do the game justice (and one of the best updates to the game was headed up by them), but they ultimately were at the mercy of the execs. I’m hoping without the same constraints, they might deliver a kick ass game without the bullshit.
I really liked parts of Ascend, but the game never really came together for me. It felt like they were focused on the high speed esport angle, but I was looking for the base assault/defense plays.
It isn’t low-g, you have a jetpack. If you hit the ground at the right angle, you “ski”, building up speed. It’s a CTF game, so cappers try to hit the enemy flag stand at ludicrous speeds and then find a route back to their base.
It’s the first FPS I played that had the notion of a generator. Each base has a generator that powers turrets, sensors, force fields (that might be a mod), and inventory stations.
In theory a team has to work together to take down the enemy’s generator so they can get to the flag stand. In practice nobody gives a shit after the generator is destroyed so most games end up as running battles around the flag carrier.
It’s not a bad series, but the official map builders never seemed to get the balance between base maintenance and flag control right.
I’m pretty sure the generator was part of the stock game, because it powered sensors (which the commander needed), inventory stations, and base turrets. All three of those were part of the base game, IIRC.
The shifter mod added a lot. I think it might have added force fields.
It sure does but the odds of me using it are almost zero since I keep it docked and play on a big TV. Maybe Professor Layton will get me to pull it out but I imagine the puzzles will still be designed around the fact that a lot of people will not be using the touch screen. It’s going to affect the types of puzzles seen.
I can understand invisible walls to stop you going off the map, or little “airlock” areas to hide a loading zone, but what is the point of this other than filler?
It's worth remembering that the business model always affects the game design. 6th gen consoles were arguably the most "pure", since obtuse games with strategy guide and hint hotline revenue streams were just about dead thanks to free GameFAQs, and DLC had yet to be introduced. Still, their incentives were to cheaply make as much "value" as they could, which meant churning out levels so that they could put a higher number on the back of the box for how much content you got for your $50 (a little over $80 in today's money). They also knew there was a good chance people would rent the game and decide to buy it off of that experience, so the best content was typically front-loaded, and then you'd get a lot of padded levels in the later parts of the game. It was rare that I would finish games back then, because often times a game would start strong and then end up filling big rooms, that look a whole lot like earlier big rooms, with trash mobs repeating the same simple loop over and over.
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