Tiny Troopers Are On The March, Are You Ready For Battle?
Tiny Troopers ($2.99) by Chillingo Ltd is a tap-to adventure for the iPhone and iPad where you control a troop of miniature military men. Kill the enemy, find the loot and complete missions, all with a simple tap of your finger. These mighty minis have got all the proper vernacular and sense of humor that a soldier should have.
The first thing you will have to do before unlocking the campaign or mission mode is to play the tutorial I’m mentioning this because it took me a minute to figure out how to start playing the game. Just tap the “tutorial” button and the rest will happen automatically.
Your goal is to complete various missions, like kill all enemy infantry or destroy all enemy buildings, while collecting medals, health increases, dog tags and other items to help you progress. Once you’ve completed your mission, you must rendezvous at the extraction zone to be airlifted out of the area.
As soldiers complete missions, they gain experience and ultimately move up in ranks. If one of your soldiers dies, he is easily replaced, but starts over as a Private. You can upgrade your soldiers’ ranks by collecting medals that are used in the support store.
In the middle of a mission, you can visit the support store to stock up on weapons, get medical attention for a trooper and deploy airborne support. These can be very helpful if you didn’t purchase enough grenades before the mission started. It can also help you save on command points. You don’t always know when you are going to need extra firepower and there is no need to be overly prepared if it means you waste all of your command points.
There are three modes of gameplay for those who need a bit more experience, or players that want a real challenge. Players can also upgrade their weapons, abilities and even add more soldiers to a particular team. If you run out of command points, you can purchase more in the support store. Most upgrades that you buy don’t carry over into the next mission, so even though command points flow freely in this game, they can easily be used up without you even realizing it.
This is a fun adventure game with 30 missions that can be played with three different modes. The graphics are great and the comments the soldiers make add to the light hearted humor of the game. At $2.99 (and that is a special introductory price) it is a little on the pricey side. I’d say it would be a better bargain at $1.99. To make things worse, the in-app purchase options almost seem like an insult. Players pay a premium price just to download this game, and are offered the opportunity to spend even more once the game gets started. I like the game, but I don’t like the price tag.
