The fightback against cigarettes starts with Zombie Gunship-esque Flavor Monsters

The war against the health problems caused by cigarettes can now be fought on your mobile phone or tablet.

The US anti-smoking group truth® has released a top-down shooter for iOS and Android called Flavor Monsters, which has players fire upon cigarettes with plasma cannons from an orbiting airship.

Only, the cigarettes aren't really cigarettes … they're monsters the size of small suburban houses gleefully engaging in a city-wide campaign of destruction.

As players blast away at the monsters on screen, a scrolling news ticker on the bottom of the screen relays statistics about the perils of smoking once against substituting 'cigarettes' with 'monsters'.

The message behind the game is laudable, but the execution feels a bit clumsy.

The anti-smoking message is shoehorned into a game inspired by Zombie Gunship, which is awkward enough, but the controls and targeting are fiddly at the best of times.

Many users on the App Store and Google Play report issues with the app crashing repeatedly, but the version we have here at Pocket Gamer ran smoothly.

Truth has offered games as part of its anti-smoking campaign website since 2006, but Flavor Monsters is its first foray into mobile gaming. The point of the title is to highlight the various addictives and flavours which are added to tobacco products.

It plans to bring Flavor Monsters to a host of popular American conventions such as New York Comic Con via a bright orange 'Truth Truck'.

Google Play: Flavor Monsters