TransLumen said it had developed the game, featuring an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, in response to an explosive growth in military uses of iPhone and iPod Touch, the versatile hand-held device for music, movies, surfing the Internet and games. TransLumen did not say if UAV Fighter could run on iPod Touch as well.

UAV Fighter is available to download for 99 cents at Apple Web sites.

TransLumen has been known earlier for its collaboration with Boeing, Motorola and Lockheed to develop sensory awareness technology for troops in combat. The company has received grants from NASA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Naval Research for its various defense-related programs.

TransLumen said the UAV Fighter video game was developed in collaboration with Entertaining Games Inc., based in West Dundee, Ill., a company with dozens of games to its credit, including Mortal Kombat and Silver Strike Bowling.

"From simple online games to multi-player to console to coin-op, we have done it all," the company says. Industry analysts say it may be too early to measure the market for UAV Fighter, but iPhone has a growing global following and enjoys cult status in many countries outside the Western Hemisphere, including Europe and Asia.

UAV Fighter allows the user to pilot a UAV in uncannily realistic conditions and attack suspected terrorists with a variety of ammunition.

Much of the game's development is owing to the personal involvement of TransLumen founder and chief technology officer, Doug Siefken, who served as a combat photographer for the Navy during the Vietnam War. Siefken owns several patents related to software-enabled combat imaging.

The company's no-holds-barred marketing of the video game promises that "everyone will notice the look of evil glee that comes across your face as you unleash the terrifying power of the Plasma Laser equipped Proteus Prototype!"

The game allows the player to pilot simplified versions of actual unmanned aerial vehicles, including the MQ-9 Reaper, the RQ-11 Raven, and the Proteus prototype currently in development by Scaled Composites, an aerospace and specialty composites development company located in Mojave, Calif.

The ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have spawned a splurge of online or video "entertainment," but not always with comfortable results for the developers or companies marketing them.

Six Days in Fallujah, billed as the closest a player can get to the war in Iraq without going into combat, features video figures as Marines during Operation Phantom Fury, the most intense urban warfare for U.S. troops in half a century. The game simulates the bloody conflict for the control of the city in 2004, but it caused outrage among veterans and military families in the United States.

Operation Phantom Fury resulted in the deaths of more than 1,350 insurgents or inhabitants and about 95 American troops.

Mortal Kombat also sparked controversy over its blood and gore content.

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