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Tiny Troopers: Global Ops – Review

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It’s been twenty years since the twin-stick shooter genre really took off and over the last few decades we’ve seen variations from ground to distant galaxies, but the tried and tested method of a character with a gun returns with Tiny Troopers: Global Ops.

Global Ops is the sequel to 2014’s Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops which was a twin-stick take on the original point & click shooter – Tiny Troopers on PC & iOS from a few years earlier.

Global Ops will see your soldier and squad as part of TALON Corps, venture across the globe visiting 6 major locations each separated into chapters, there’s 6-8 levels in each chapter, bringing us a total of 43 levels.
Across each level you’ll have to move and shoot your way across a variety of objectives such as rescuing prisoners, collecting items or just escaping to extraction, missions are mostly short and sharp usually taking about 3-5 minutes to complete, but some might take a little longer, but I don’t think any hit the 10-minute mark.

Your left stick moves your character around with the right stick controlling their aim and direction, RT fires and LT switches to any secondary you might have such as a grenade or rocket launcher, You can also use B to activate an item, such as healing or giving a small speed boost, then there’s dodge on the right bumper which will come in handy when you accidentally trigger a mine or want to jump away from incoming fire.

First impressions of Global Ops are very slow and laboured with a slow-firing pistol and a movement speed that would only make a sloth jealous, those first few levels don’t set a very good image of what to expect, but when you do visit the armoury, things start to improve drastically.

Primary weapons are a little basic, with that awful pistol followed by a SMG and finally a burst-fire assault rifle, all of which can be levelled up using the experience gained from completing missions.
During a mission, you’ll want to pick up as many points as possible, so killing enemies and completing objects is one thing, but you’ll want to collect any medals you find lying around and try to keep doing the above throughout as picking up points consistently increases your multiplier which can bring in much higher scores and that all important XP.

After an hour or so, you should be about finished with the first Persian chapter, and have enough XP to rank up your soldier and upgrade your weapon as well as unlock a secondary or item to start off with.
There’s also speed and health boosts or the ability to call on a drone, airstrike or reinforcements for backups, as well as squad upgrades which will allow up to a 4-man squad on your missions.

Similar to Cannon Fodder of old, losing a soldier mid-mission means they’re dead and while I never really felt attached to my otherwise pretty useless squad who only aim and shoot at the character you’re firing at, Its still better to have a full squad of 4 sooner rather than later, even if only to serve as a distracting shield from bullets.

I personally opted for the SMG and a few speed boosts, which go a long way to moving past the very slow and mundane early levels when you’re walking around with a pistol, the SMG only fire’s 5-shot bursts, and doesn’t match the range of the Assault rifle, but I found with constant movement (required to dodge incoming fire) I could still pull apart enemy squads with relative ease.
If you do find it a little simple, you can always increase the difficulty for a higher score multiplier. Higher difficulties don’t throw a noticeable horde of extra enemies at you, but those that you do face will generally have more health and deal more damage.

But it definitely helps to make the game feel a little more exciting as on the easier difficulties, especially with the pistol and limited speed, things start to feel stale quicker than you can drag your feet to the 2nd or 3rd mission.

As you progress things definitely start to feel more fluid by the third chapter and countless upgrades, but there is a degree of repetition that quickly sets in, each chapter has a variety of locations from deserts and forest areas to shanty towns and city streets, but the core objective of travelling from A to B and killing everything you pass doesn’t really change through the entirety of the game.
If it wasn’t for the weapon and speed upgrades, it’d be even worse.
The saving grace though are the options of how to play, combatting the mission’s solo gets a little tiresome, but joining friend on local or online multiplayer keeps things interesting especially with cross-platform play also available.

Sadly though, public games are going to be a tough match to make, after trying multiple times, including peak times on a Friday evening, I couldn’t find a single online game to join.
The other downside with multiplayer is, with each character having their own upgrades, you’re likely to be a shepherd or a sheep, and either running through the level killing everyone with ease, or following the distant footsteps in the hope of getting enough points to make it enjoyable or worthwhile.

Looking at presentation and there’s thankfully plenty of positives, menus are minimal, and from the tutorial and narration, there’s plenty of voice acting in place which might not be award winning, but it’s still tons better than I’d initially expected.
Likewise, the overall graphics are perfectly fine, with some good attention to detail, nice variety between most missions and thanks to a discreet location prompt and the red circle when targeting an enemy, it’s generally always easy to know where you’re going and what you’re doing.

One negative to point out is with collision detection, and the slightest collision with a wall, plant or platform edge, brings your character to a stop, which can be frustrating when the game generally feels a few steps slower than it should be.

I do feel Tiny Troopers: Global ops has some potential, but it’s slow, laboured and repetitive, if it’d arrived starting at the pace of the 2nd speed upgrade and with more upgrades and cosmetics to unlock, I can imagine it being a game I’d happily return to time and time again,
At just over £15, it’s not terrible value, likely to fill a few evenings, but as it stands, it’s currently all a little too laboured, repetitive and not engaging enough to bring you back after the initial 4-6 hour playthrough.
If you’re a fan of Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops, or just like well-presented twin-stick shooters, there’s plenty to enjoy here, but don’t expect much in the way of engrossing or innovative gameplay.

Tiny Troopers: Global Ops

Review by Lee Palmer

Gameplay
65%
Engagement
50%
Graphics
75%
Sound
75%
Value
65%

Summary

At just over £15, it’s not terrible value, likely to fill a few evenings, but as it stands, it’s currently all a little too laboured, repetitive and not engaging enough to bring you back after the initial 4-6 hour playthrough.
If you’re a fan of Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops, or just like well-presented twin-stick shooters, there’s plenty to enjoy here, but don’t expect much in the way of engrossing or innovative gameplay.

66%

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