Tiny Troopers: Global Ops review

Global Ops doesn’t radically improve on the formula of its predecessors, so expect simple, twin-stick firefights propelled by the urge to power up your pint-sized soldiers.

Since the series’ 2012 debut, Tiny Troopers have trudged forward, much like each game’s diminutive soldiers. Following an auspicious debut on mobile, where the original game received over a million downloads, a PC port quickly followed. Subsequently, a sequel and compilation arrived, demonstrating Troopers’ plans for conquering console and portable hardware. Over a decade after the release of the original game, Tiny Troopers: Global Ops has now landed. Regrettably, these soldiers haven’t learned many new strategies during their enlistment.

The biggest change with Global Ops is support for up to a quartet of either local or online partners. But given how the game is generally easy and doesn’t properly scale the difficulty for any additional allies, cooperative play isn’t much of a draw. If you do to battle with remote companions, know that online play is relatively lag-free, especially when everyone is in the same geographical region.

Allies Who Occasionally Ignore Incoming Artillery

For soloists, you won’t be missing much. Yes, your AI partners are moderately helpful, but for players with even a bit of twin-stick shooter experience, the 40-stage campaign is mostly a pushover. Largely, any CPU-controlled allies are fairly good at mirroring your movements and providing additional streams of firepower. But they’re not completely skilled at evading incoming artillery fire or grenades. You’ll make use of dashing to avoid danger, but allies aren’t always as proficient. Developers Epiphany Games and Kukouri Mobile Entertainment seem to know this and scattered a generous amount of medical supplies to neutralize any frustration.

Like previous Tiny Troopers entries, the 6 chapters deliver simple, twin-stick shooting action. You’ll move through snaking but largely linear levels, gunning down any opposition that spawns around you. Sophistication is mostly rooted in the decision to use your secondary weapon. Here, you might use a rocket launcher to destroy a tower with a nettlesome machine gunner. The use of a grenade can take out a cluster of enemies, keeping your combo meter from dropping. While Global Ops’ basic weapons are serviceable, most of your ammo-dependent secondaries deliver a rousing ass-kicking.

Be Grateful for Unlimited Standard Ammo

But like previous series entries, Global Ops remains a bit unpolished. A portion of the damage you’ll receive is from off-screen foes. As such, one of the game’s best tactics is to keep shooting in the direction of movement. While some environmental objects provide basic cover, sporadically enemy projectiles will clip through corners. You’ll see things like sandbag fortifications about some of the stages, but these are too inconsistent to be useful. Even basic battle strategies like firing from an elevated position aren’t part of Tiny Troopers play. Most of the time, you’ll be circle-strafing spawning enemies, which gets boring after the first chapter.

Oddly, it’s Global Ops progression system rather than its combat that held my interest. At the end of each level, your performance is ranked and you earn experience based on variables such as how quickly the stage was completed, how many opponents were gunned down, and how many collectibles were gathered. Back at your headquarters, you can use this experience to augment your own Trooper.

Buy Your Way Up the Chain of Command

You can advance in military ranking and increase your base stats as well as the effectiveness of your weapons, secondaries, and power-ups. Additionally, you can enhance your allies. But any resources invested in your troops should come second. If assistants die in combat, all progress you’re purchased is lost. But like the abundance of med kits, the developers provide plenty of experience, allowing you to fritter away resources like a dirty politician.

Given Global Ops’ bulky 24GB file size you might expect the game to look arresting in action. But most of the time, the texturing is a bit muddy, which can sporadically impair your navigation. Occasionally, this is exacerbated by lighting that washes out the playfield even further. There are points in the game when environmental objects obscure the screen or locations where enemies are stationed. That said, the framerate in the latest build is now rather steady. A few days before release translucent elements in some environments would notably disrupt Steam Deck performance, but now that’s all been patched up. But there are still a few telltale amendments to be made. Details like the icon for Trooper shields (it looks like an inverted ‘V”) beg for revision.

Conclusion

Regretfully, Tiny Troopers: Global Ops hasn’t enriched the series’ basic formula, meaning your mission is little more than holding the trigger while dodging for about seven hours. However, tedium is partially offset by a power-up system- at least until you’ve level capped by the fourth or fifth chapter. Making it to the end of the game with some enthusiasm left in your tank is the real battle.

Tiny Troopers: Global Ops was played on
PC with review code provided by the publisher.