Tiny Troopers: Global Ops (Xbox Series X)

Tiny Troopers: Global Ops is an isometric shooter in the Tiny Troopers franchise, developed by Epiphany Games and Kukori Mobile, and Published by Wired Productions. The fifth game in the franchise and the first appearing on PS5 and Xbox Series Consoles. Let’s check that next gen version out.

Having only previously heard of the games, once I got to having a look I was instantly drawn in to the isometric twin stick shooter gameplay and fun cartoony visual style. Gameplay is exactly as I imagined, small but busy levels with loads of different objectives and waves upon waves of enemies. These can vary from literally defending positions from enemies to collecting so many items in an area. Tiny Troopers keeps you on your feet with loads to do. There’s a good amount of levels too, with 6 full episodes with 8 levels in each of these, these all take you to different areas and each has a unique visual style (Level one, you’re in a desert area, there’s a jungle area etc) These again all look pretty fun and each map provides new and unique objectives.

Early game presents you on your own going through each of these levels, but you’ll soon work out you’re massively overwhelmed. So you have some ways of improving your odds. Firstly you can hire new team mates, these all have generic stats, but visually you can customise them. Secondly you can upgrade your arsenal, giving you newer weapons, bigger clips, higher damage, the usual stuff. You can also upgrade your teammates gear which is also a big help, giving them the same stat boosts, these cost a bit and can be lost. Yep that’s right, if one of your team mates dies in game, like the similar playing retro title Cannon Fodder, once your team mates die, they’re proper dead, well unless you revive them quickly, if not though there’s no coming back.

So if you’re rubbish like me, you’ll be replaying the first levels quite a bit to try and get more and more credits. Which leads me to to my first main issue with Global Ops, starting out is tough. Like a standard mobile game, the grind is long and boring. Once you’ve played them first few levels a few times, you’ll be sick of doing them.

Like previously mentioned, the visual presentation is fine. The cartoon style has been in the franchise from the beginning and personally I feel this is what previously mentioned Cannon Fodder would pretty much look like now. It’s got that cheeky look about it that most mobile titles do, and that’s fine. And you can dress your team mate up as a clown too which is a bonus.

Audio has again no major issues, my only gripe is the horrendous English accents by the voiceovers, which I get is intentional but I had to mute Fable when I played that because the accents were too bad for me.

There is an only mode which I can only presume will let you play fully co-op with up to 3 other people, but each time I tried to get into this, no games could be found as I tried to connect through each server, crossplay was an option so other formats could be played with, and I was able to join and or host a private game. I dont doubt this would be more fun with a group of friends with maxed out characters.

Tiny Troopers Global Ops is a serviceable port that doesn’t really break any new ground, but is pretty standard fare for anyone who needs a bit of a grindy twin stick shooter