War never changes, and for the most part neither does top-down shooters. However Tiny Troopers Joint Ops isn’t just a typical top-down shooter with twin-stick controls, at least not on the Playstation Vita. Despite billing itself as a bite sized arcade shooter, the game doesn’t really hold much of the exhilaration you expect from a typical arcade shooter, with it being much slower paced.

So if Tiny Trooper Joint Ops isn’t your atypical fast paced arcade shooter what is it? To answer this question it is first worth looking at the history of the game.
Tiny Troopers started life as a game on mobile phones in the mould of Cannon Fodder developed by Kukori Mobile Entertainment. This port to consoles has been published by Wired Productions and combines Tiny Troopers 1 and 2 into one package. The port definitely maintains a lot of what made it fun on handheld devices, at least on the Vita, the only version tested in this review, however it also brings over some of the issues with games made for mobile devices too.

One of the issues is the levelling system. The game purposefully makes you move slower and hit lighter at the beginning, and in terms of damage dealt this is fine, but the base movement level is so painfully slow that the missions are extremely plodding until you level up your movement speed (which will take you several stages). The movement speed doesn’t really make the game easier either, just more enjoyable and it would’ve been much better if it was just set higher at the beginning. It is however satisfying to get enough points to improve your troops and, for the most part, the levelling system works well, and carries over to both campaigns in the game, Soldier and Spec Ops, which is a blessing.

Missions themselves are set out in various ways, sometimes you will only be taking one trooper through the map to destroy an objective and escape. On other occasions you will be placed in an almost arena like setting and have to survive until the waves of enemies stop coming. The troopers you have act as lives, when your leader dies you then take control of another trooper. You can have up to 3 in a team in some missions, and the chance to bring in a specialist, if you think the mission calls upon it. A specialist ranges from the likes of a medic to a machine gunner and can be unlocked to purchase for one mission by finding medals throughout the levels.

As with nearly every game escort and rescue missions are levels which will have you rolling your eyes and getting frustrated. This is because most the time, you will see one of the people you are escorting getting killed. It does seem the developer thought about this though and made sure to not have a mission fail until all of the characters being escorted are dead. This will mean that most missions can be completed on a first playthrough, but if you wanted to try and get a higher score, you could playthrough it again to try and keep all of those being escorted alive.

Due to the levelling stacking across both campaigns it does mean that on the start of the second campaign (Spec Ops for me, as I have to play things chronologically) it is extremely easy, but luckily there are difficulty options to make the game more challenging if you want and the zombie horde mode in each stage of Spec Ops is a nice challenge. Although the levelling does stack, it feels like both campaigns are completely separate entities (which they are). Spec Ops has nicer cutscenes than Soldier, due to it being the port of Tiny Troopers 2, but I also noticed odd glitches that I didn’t notice in the Soldier campaign. Most of them corrected themselves quickly enough, but getting a trooper stuck on a tree whilst enemies are firing or airstrikes are raining down is very frustrating and will see you wanting to not try darting through the trees to pick up collectables.

Mechanically the game works fairly well on the PS Vita, due to the touch screen and it also has a left-handed control scheme, which is always a nice bonus. Despite being billed as a twin-stick shooter, if you are anything like me you will not be using the sticks to shoot very often. The reason for me rarely using the sticks to shoot is down to the fact that it is difficult to gain accuracy with them, and often when you’re trying to fire fast with all three troops, you will find them firing in all directions. What this leads to is an odd mix of touch control to shoot at enemies, whilst still trying to move about with the stick. Dragging rockets and grenades from your on-screen HuD for use feels clumsy, but it is something you learn to compensate for.

Tiny Troopers Joint Ops is a game of two halves, with its strongest showing definitely in the second game. It’s also a game that knows exactly what it is, selling at a very reasonable £5.49. It may have its issues, but for those that are fans of the mobile versions, or of games like Canon Fodder, then it will definitely help you pass the time. There is plenty of customisation and enough missions to keep you occupied for several hours. The Cross-Buy nature of it is definitely a plus, but it seems like a game that would be best played on a handheld.

Tiny Troopers Joint Ops is available now on Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita and is due for release on Playstation 4 later this year.

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