The iOS market place is flooded with clones of older games that were presented to us during the early 90s, there are literally hundreds of variations of Mario re-skinned and classic ATARI titles with a different reptile crossing a different stream of obstacles. Tiny Troopers falls into this category, finding itself to be a carbon copy of the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive hit Cannon Fodder…However, Tiny Troopers improves on that recipe, adding up-to-date graphics, and some nice features that were missing back in the 1990s.
Tiny Troopers puts you in command of a group of soldiers, tiny ones at that – your objective is to clear the level by either escorting NPCs, killing all the enemy units, destroying all enemy buildings or a variation of all three. The game uses simple touch screen controls to allow you to move and shoot by simply plonking your finger wherever you want these actions to take place.
Sadly the game begins to lose its charm on the levels that force you to track down all enemy units, the maps can sometimes be rather large and you’ll tend to find yourself trekking across a level for an extra minute or two having absolutely nothing to do; you are given a map however and by picking up pieces of intel from fallen enemies you can sometimes find the location of other enemies and buildings, but it still remains a long drawn out process.
I preferred the escort missions myself, whilst the escort A.I was nothing to write home about (They quite literally walk on a rail, even if it’s directly into gunfire) the enemies ran to you and the process was a lot more enjoyable and succinct.
Whilst Tiny Troopers will play on both the iPhone and iPod touch, its loading times and screen resolution are dreadful, with virtually unreadable text making it difficult to navigate the menus without straining pretty hard. It’s quite easy to tell that this game was designed for the iPad.
Tiny Troopers greatest strength comes in its easy to use controls and its simple design, however I can’t help but feel I’m swayed to enjoy it more based on my love for Cannon Fodder, so all in all I’d say If you enjoyed games like Cannon Fodder and Commandos back in the day, then pick up this game.
Tiny Troopers
Developed by: Kukouri Mobile Entertainment
Platform: iOS
Price: £1.99/$2.99