S&S Mobile Review: Tiny Troopers

Title: Tiny Troopers 
Format: iOS (Reviewed), Android, PC, Mac
Release Date: August 22, 2012
Publisher: Chillingo
Developer: Kukouri
Price: Free
ESRB Rating: 12+
      Do you like real-time strategy games? What about action games? If you said yes to the last two questions than Tiny Troopers is a game for you!


GAMEPLAY:

      Tiny Troopers doesn't have much deeper of a story than blowing up unnamed cartoon enemies, so the gameplay has to carry the entire experience. You control a group of soldiers, fighting their way through a multitude of missions, leveling up as they go. The catch is that if one of your soldiers are killed, they stay dead and are replaced by a new, less experienced character. It's a great way of the game rewarding you for playing it smart and planning out your attack. After each mission you can also buy items and one-use "specialist" character. The campaign features thirty missions of increasing difficulty, offering around 5 hours of gameplay. Also included is Zombie Mode, a survival mode in which you attempt to stay alive as long as you can against massive waves of, you guessed it, zombies. For a $0.99 game, you're getting a fairly long gameplay experience, plus infinite replays in Zombie mode. 

CONTROLS:
     Tiny Trooper's controls are very simple, but leave a bit to be desired. Essentially you just tap where you want to walk or shoot. Also included are a few onscreen buttons for special attacks, grenades, etc. Even with these simplistic, bare bones controls, it still manages to feel muddled and often times unresponsive. 

The fact that tapping the screen controls gun fire and movement is the biggest problem, causing me to fire when I want to move or move when I want to fire. Adding a virtual joystick for movement should be a perfect fix for the problem. 




FINAL THOUGHTS:
      Tiny Troopers is an awesome and addictive game, perfect for a few minutes of gaming at a time. Unfortunately the overall experience is bogged down by a poorly designed control scheme.  Fortunately, the game is free so despite the awkward controls, I'd still recommend downloading it.

                                                         S&S Rating:7.5/10                                              @DrMrPHD