Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops XL

A miniature military campaign delivers brisk twin-stick firefights, destructible-looking chaos, and a cartoon war-zone tone that never takes itself too seriously. Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops XL combines the campaigns from the first two Tiny Troopers games into one compact action package, sending small squads through deserts, jungles, villages, and enemy compounds. The scale is deliberately toy-like, but the missions carry enough explosions, ambushes, and civilian-rescue pressure to keep the pace lively. It feels closer to an old-school arcade shooter than a tactical simulation, with fast restarts and immediate objectives.

Players guide a soldier or small unit through bite-sized missions, moving, aiming, firing, tossing grenades, and calling in support against rebel forces. Objectives vary between eliminating targets, destroying installations, rescuing hostages, protecting allies, and navigating minefields, so levels rarely amount to simple enemy cleanup. Fallen troops can be replaced by specialist mercenaries, including medics for recovery and heavier gunners for added firepower, while earned medals, dog tags, and intelligence pickups encourage thorough play. The XL edition also adds an Ultra-Hardcore setting for players who want less room for mistakes, alongside a substantial undead selection built around campaign stages, survival, and wave-based maps.

The strongest feature is its efficiency: more than 60 main missions offer quick, readable arcade action without demanding a huge time investment. Zombie modes add sillier scenarios and stronger crowd-control demands, including maps involving airfield assaults and bizarre hostile poultry, giving the package more variety than its military premise suggests. Its isometric viewpoint and direct controls evoke games like Cannon Fodder, though the structure is far more casual and score-driven than strategically deep. Anyone after a light, approachable shooter with short missions and plenty of replayable challenge should find it satisfying, while veterans can pursue collectibles and tackle the punishing hardest difficulty.