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The best of free iPhone gaming: Allied Star Police is like Red Alert meets tower defence

10-year-old leukemia patient inspires 4th & Battery's best yet

The best of free iPhone gaming: Allied Star Police is like Red Alert meets tower defence
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| Allied Star Police

When "edgy" PopCap spin-off 4th & Battery revealed that its third game would be designed by an "extraordinary" person, it wasn't kidding.

10-year-old Owain Weinert is undergoing treatment for leukemia. He wanted to design a game, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, working with 4th & Battery, made it happen.

So there would have been uncomfortable silences all round if the final product had been a duffer. It's not. In fact, side-scrolling strategy-arcade Allied Star Police is 4th & Battery's best game yet.

The war to end all wars

Linked by four parallel vehicle tracks, two military bases sit at opposing ends of a desolate canyon. One belongs to the forces of good under your command, the other to the evil Flamions.

Your mission is simple: end the stalemate and destroy the Flamion base.

Deploying forces to make that happen is easy enough: tap a unit portrait on the bottom bar, and then tap a lane on the battlefield to deploy it.

Units constantly push onwards, stopping only to inflict death or die themselves. They can't cross lanes, and they can't give way to reinforcements. You can't even issue direct orders. This is a fight to the end.

Total annihilation

Indeed, the nature of the game positively invites lengthy slogs of attrition warfare. Every battle is satisfyingly destructive, unfolding like a skirmish from an old 2D RTS game such as Command & Conquer.

Units explode into pieces, mini-shockwaves decorate the chaos, and weapons fire lights up the screen. And as the game goes on the battles only get larger and more frequent.

The simplicity gives it a tower defence feel, but mixing your forces and deploying reinforcements makes this a much more involved experience. You'll actively search for more advanced tactics to overcome the stalemate.

Power-ups create tactical opportunities. For instance, you can follow up a tank deployment with an ATV in another lane and then let it race ahead to meet the enemy forces alone, equipped with turbo and a force field.

Your invincible buggy will sit there soaking up all manner of death-inducing lasers while your real forces - the tanks - roll up behind the scenes for a free shot at the enemy, much like using Red Alert's Iron Curtain shield.

It might not be the next StarCraft, but Owain's collaboration with 4th & Battery has produced something everyone can enjoy. Allied Star Police is out now on the App Store.

To find out more about Owain Weinert and his condition, or to make a donation, head on over to Owain's Army.

Ryan McGowan
Ryan McGowan
Currently studying for a university degree, Ryan used to spend an unhealthy amount of his time indoors, playing on his consoles. Thankfully, he's turned his life around and now spends an unhealthy amount of time outdoors, playing on his handheld consoles. Well, it's the thought that counts