Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Developer: Kukouri Mobile Entertainment
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Core2Duo/2.0 GHz AMD X2 64 or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB Nvidia 7900/Radeon HD 2600 or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, DirectX 9.0c, 500 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Playing games on mobile devices has become big business, despite the small prices we have to pay for the games (outside of the devices themselves and their monthly fees, of course). The popularity of the mobile gaming genre has made developers sit up and take notice, with several mainstream games now having small-screen versions. But it’s rare that a mobile game takes the reverse trip of moving from iPhones and tablets to the PC. One of these is Tiny Troopers, Finnish developer Kukouri’s squad-based shooter featuring pint-sized soldiers firing full-sized weapons.

Tiny Troopers puts you in control of a squad of up to four soldiers, depending upon which of the 30 missions you’re playing. There’s a story behind it all, but it’s not important, since your main focus throughout is miniature death and destruction. Most of the missions involve destroying everything that moves, but a few of them have you escorting embedded journalists through the battle zone or surviving what amounts to tiny horde mode, as waves of diminutive enemies descend upon you from all directions.

Peppered through most of the levels are collectibles such as dog tags and gold medals. Finding these adds Command Points (CP) to your coffers, which you can use to call for air drops of health and weapons during missions, or to buy companions and supplies that you can only keep for one mission. Your characters are promoted through the military ranks as they proceed through the game, but if they die, then they stay dead, and you have to start leveling a new character. Fortunately, new squad members are recruited at higher ranks, provided you’ve found enough gold medals to unlock higher skill levels.

Visually, Tiny Troopers looks exactly like it is — a PC port of an iOS game. Textures are all smooth and simple, almost cartoonish, and lighting effects are good. The characters are all made up with adult features (five o’clock shadows, eye patches, etc.), but they still sound disturbingly childlike, with pre-pubescent voices that can be annoying at times. Dead bodies disappear after a few seconds, leaving large puddles of blood in their places. The maps become more complex and varied as you move through the missions, making it disappointing that the interface doesn’t include an always-on minimap.

Controlling your tiny soldiers started out as a difficult proposition when the game was released. Character interaction was almost completely mouse-based, and you had to hold a CTRL key down and right-click to use alternate weapons such as grenades. But not too long after release, Kukouri patched in WASD controls, and Tiny Troopers became an entirely new game. Keyboard character movement allows you to move and fire much more efficiently, a tactic that is vital for success. This change, plus the ability to rapid fire by holding down the left mouse button, turned a tough, almost frustrating shooter into a much more accessible game. Perhaps too easy, it turns out, since now you could probably finish all 30 levels in the course of one rainy weekend afternoon. But there are still some odd problems. You only control one character in the squad. The others always follow you in single file, and always in the same order, so if the soldier behind you gets stuck, then the rest of them are stuck with him. There are no penalties to your score if members of your squad die during a mission, and if you fail to complete a mission, then you lose the CP that you spent at the beginning, making it more difficult to outfit your squad for a replay. Enemy strength is pretty much constant until the last 10 missions, when kamikaze TNT-wielders and soldiers with riot shields are introduced, but the missions don’t really increase much in difficulty, making the final map in each chapter disappointingly simple to finish.

I was having more difficulty with Tiny Troopers than I was prepared to admit, until WASD controls were added, turning the game 180 degrees from challenging to perhaps too simple. I had more fun than I expected I would, although it’s much too short, it needs co-op mode and a level creator, and I was going to have a brain seizure if I heard one more squeaky voice yell “Stay frosty!” too many more times. But the game’s short, compact levels and simple objectives make it something that you can fire up, play a level or two and shut it down when you have limited available time, something mobile games have always done well. Tiny Troopers is a cute little game (if you can call a shooter cute) that just needs to be upgraded to a cute big game.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation: