Solstice Chronicles: MIA Is A Quality Twin-Stick Shooter

Sometimes I like to kill things. As I grow older, I tend not to satisfy this craving as much as I did in my youth. Over the years I have desired slower games and artistic efforts – Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable, Rituals, Planet Coaster, Broken Age and many more decorate the shelves of my Steam library. But sometimes this craving for absolute carnage grabs me. Last week I finally got around to buying Wolfenstein: The New Order, which was long overdue, let me tell you. So when I was offered the chance to play twin stick shooter Solstice Chronicles: MIA, I jumped at it.

Twin stick shooters aren’t really the kinda game I go for. In fact, I’ve only played a few over the course of my life. The only two I can think of are I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 and Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer, which I had totally forgotten about and took me the best part of two days to remember the name, and isn’t actually a twin stick shooter. Good work, me. Nevertheless, I took my controller and delved into the latest game from Ironward.

Over the past few days, I managed to have a quick blast through MIA, but I must admit that I have only scratched the surface. As for the game, it’s a lot of fun, playing like all twin stick shooters: left stick controls your guy, right stick fires in that direction. MIA does add a touch of favour for those without a controller – you can control your character with DWAS, and use the mouse to direct your fire. It’s an interesting way to play, but I preferred using a controller.

You can carry two weapons, with one shot weapons like Miniguns and Cannons that can be picked up. You can customise your loadout when going into a new section, and your character will level up during your playthrough, adding more abilities as you go. The game also has an interesting wrinkle: a meter at the top of the screen always details your threat level. The threat level dictates how many monsters can spawn in a level. Low threat won’t trouble you too much, but a high or even extreme threat level can cause some issues.

At higher levels, monsters spawn in great number and the only way to keep your threat level in check is to kill, kill and KILL! If you don’t kill, perhaps due to not managing your ammo correctly, you’ll easily find yourself outnumbered and in a lot of trouble. Luckily, you have a little buddy to assist you in your endless murder. A floating, robotic AI follows you and is very reminiscent of Ghost in Destiny, only more – you know – charming. Far from being just a nattering plot device, this AI is much more helpful.

Your AI buddy has various abilities to assist you in your rampage. Taps on the d-pad in various directions will result in different effects. You can block your opponents, which generates a bubble like forcefield around you, bomb, which kind of does what it says on the tin, and scout, which helps you find hidden items, ammo and loot. However, it’s not that simple. Each ability will also cost you. for instance, using one ability might also spawn a huge nasty enemy, while another might spawn a number of waves who all want your blood.

MIA is a great example of its genre, however it does play like a game that offers a mixed message. MIA feels as though it wants to be an all out bulletfest, reminiscent of that scene in Aliens (they’re in the goddamn walls, man!). But the game forces you to ration your ammo, which means you can’t go full Hudson trigger happy like you feel you should. Then again, if the game didn’t have ammo rationing then it’d be too easy; the rationing adds an extra level of depth to the title, which the game needs.

MIA has some pretty sweet artwork, taking cues from other video games such as Halo and the aforementioned Destiny. It also has the feel of dark future science fiction similar to that of the Warhammer 40k universe. This is both a good and bad thing, as MIA doesn’t feel as fresh as it could, and too similar to what has come before. That said it’s design captures that dark science fiction set-up well, with MIA’s universe filled with dirty machinery, grim tunnels and dark worlds. It makes the most of its roots.

Solstice Chronicles: MIA is frenzied and chaotic, but adds depth with its ammo rationing and threat levels. What lets the game down somewhat is that it is rather rough around the edges. Glitches appear from time to time, ranging from minor bugs to teleporting out of the map, expect many of these to be fixed in the 2GB post-release patch. In lower graphics modes, MIA suffers from some rather bad pop up and muddy graphics, making levels confusing to navigate at times.

Solstice Chronicles: MIA is a quality twin-stick shooter, only marred by a few technical issues. Fans of the genre will love the game, while newcomers will find a reasonable difficulty curve and enjoyable gameplay.