In Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops, players take control of miniature marines as they battle evil foes from around the world with a multitude of weapons and specialist soldiers. Collect medals, dog tags and intel during the course of each mission. With hours of gun toting and explosive gameplay, Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops is miniature warfare on a massive scale...

Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops was originally released on PS3 and PC back in 2014. Last year (2015) an updated version was released for PS4 and now it's time for Xbox One owners to bring bite-sized combat into their living rooms.

Xbox One players get a few enhancements over the PS4 edition, including exclusive Zombie Wave Maps where the desert-dwelling dead descend in droves to devour you in Operation: Zombie Storm. You can also fight back against a flock of poultry that ain’t paltry in ZFC, cruise and clear the airfield of cantankerous cadavers in Zombie Patrol or call in help from the skies whilst facing endless waves of Zombies in Z-End. In addition, a brand new cinematic soundtrack has been specially composed for the Xbox One release.

So what is Tiny Troopers all about? The aim of the game is to guide your soldier/s through the terrain (using the left thumbstick) whilst aiming and firing at any enemy using the (right thumbstick). You can buy or pick up weapons including rockets and grenades and you can fire these by holding one of the designated bumper or trigger buttons and then aiming where you want to unleash the destruction.

The game is a little fiddly to get used to in the early stages and it does suffer from quite a few rather odd bugs, but on the whole this is quite a fun little game.

Each mission has an objective (like kill all the enemy; destroy all the enemy vehicles; lead the prisoners to safety) and you must work your way around the map taking out the enemy and being careful not to kill civilians. Around the map you'll find special objects like medipacks (to heal your team); weapons (to fire at the enemy); medals (to resurrect characters that are killed in battle); points (which go towards buying upgrades) and dog tags.

The more points you get the more things you can enhance, like better armour, stronger firepower, more accurate aiming or bullets that travel further. All these help you get through the harder levels. You can also unlock new camo for your men as well as gaining access to specialist soldiers.

Now for the negative points. The cut sequences are pretty basic static cartoon drawings and the vocal acting ranges from average to terrible. In addition, because you control your team as one, if scenery gets in the way it's possible to split the team up and leave one or two members stranded. This happened on way too many instances including one where one man got stuck behind a building and I only noticed he'd gone when my other men were killed, leaving me to bring the stranded soldier out of hiding. And, even more annoyingly, on one occasion I managed to get the entire troop stuck on a small rock and nothing would dislodge them. Because you can't quit the level once you've started it (or pause it for that matter) I was unable to return to the menu. So I had to reboot the game.

In addition, the Tutorial option is automatically the default when you boot up the game, so if you accidentally push the A button you'll have to run through the tutorial again, as there's no way to stop it once it's started.

As for your men.... to be honest they die way to easily. One false move and you're dead. While you can dive to the ground to take cover from tanks, I found this a little too fiddly and most of the time I just stood back up again and got instantly killed. It's almost soul destroying to rank up your men (they rank up every time they complete a level) and then see them killed. And while you can resurrect them it takes too many medals to be able to keep your best men alive forever.

Overall, despite its many flaws, this is a fun and addictive game that will bring you a few hours enjoyment.

7

Darren Rea