A functional but quite baisc vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up. I've tried the developer's platformers and top-down horror games, so I was curious what they would do with this genre. It deserves a neutral rating but, since Steam doesn't have that, I can't really recommend it because there are better games out there for the same price.

Proxy Air Force has responsive controls and plenty of enemies and powerups. You could almost call it a twist on the bullet hell subgenre. Seems like there are dozens of bullets on screen, too many to dodge them all. To comensate, the game gives you a generous lifebar and fairly regular health refils. What this means, though, is the game doesn't require as much skill as most shoot-em-ups. There's a little strategy to positioning yourself to avoid the most destructive enemies and making sure you last until (and pick up) the next health item. It is accessible to casual gamers because of this but doesn't have the complexity, the pacing variations, or the overall excitement that classic shmups do.

The game won't take you more than 45 minutes to complete, like as not. With almost no story and overall simple gameplay, y0ou aren't likely to replay it many times. One other thing that annoyed me: sometimes you will see a "Warning" on the screen, and a wave of fighters will fly up behind you. There are fairly tight spaces between them, and they aren't always in the same position. You have to memorize to position yourself for each wave, or you'll likely die. If it had been fewer but more maneuverable fighters (like in Phelios) or it indicated where the ships were going to fly in, it wouldn't be so bad. The game is still quite beatable.

Proxy Air Force is a mediocre game, mildly interesting. I'm not saying you should absolutely avoid it, especially if it's on sale, only that you should know what to expect and that you, like the game, could do better. It will be interesting to see if the developer hones their shmup development with future games.

You can only move left or right. Levels last about 30-60 seconds each, and they play the exact same music track. Your ship is huge and enemies constantly spam dozens of bullets, while health powerups are given at what seems like times the dev thinks you're about to die. The secondary weapon sucks, but the laser is cool.

But the worst part is that while the game is presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, you can actually move all the way to the left or right inside the "black bars" and not get hit at all. So if you're achievement hunting you can get the 35k score and from there just move to either side and wait to complete the level. The final boss battle abruptly completed even though I didn't destroy it yet either.

It took me 25 minutes to beat the game earning all achievements, but it just wasn't very fun at all.

Proxy Air Force is exactly what it looks like - a poor man's 1942 with an iffy geopolitical-war plot, the kind of simplistic, no-frills, ultra-low-budget affair usually reserved for freeware websites and built-in game selections on dodgy clone consoles. There is exactly one plane to choose from, no options to speak of, and the assortment of enemy aircraft and structures to take down is not particularly varied, either. Gameplay is a simple one-button affair, and, with some skill and a generous heaping of luck, the entire thing can be completed in around half an hour. At times, even 80 British pence seems too hefty of a price to pay for it, considering one might expect something similar to be available for free.

And yet...

...and yet, despite all the aforementioned shortcomings, Proxy Air Force is not a BAD game. In fact, it is rather an enjoyable one, while it lasts. Despite its bare-bones simplicity and criminally slim content ('Various Types of Enemies' is unironically listed as a key feature on the game page), it does manage to conjure up the atavistic thrill its sort of old-school shoot-'em-up is known for, as the player blasts their way through three handfuls of (short and admittedly somewhat repetitive) levels, swerving for power-ups and extra lives, the better to take on whatever stands between them and ultimate victory.

From a technical standpoint, certain small details also show some care has been put into making this a worthwhile product; the music, in particular, is quite good, though a little too modern and crisp-sounding to truly convey the retro 16-bit feeling the graphics and gameplay are clearly going for - in that particular respect, Proxy Air Force is closer to the sort of old-school-meets-new-school hybrid game publishers would put out early into the 32-bit era, when they were not yet sure just how much the new home-gaming machines could handle.

All in all, this game does just about enough to justify its low asking price. Admittedly, in an ideal world, this would have been a free game; even still, while there are countless vastly more sophisticated and rewarding titles of the same genre available on this very platform, this small, unassuming yet undeniably charming entry into the indie vertical-shooter library will likely amount to 80p well spent for most old-school gaming fans.

Whack

Proxy Air Force is a template flip from Anamik Majumdar, who keeps reskinning the same lame GameMaker Studio game templates and re-releasing it on Steam with a few minor changes. The GameMaker Studio templates he keeps re-releasing are just basic retro pixel (couldn't he rip off a template with proper graphics??) 2D top down/platformer stealth/action games. Here's some other results of his copy+paste school of "game development":

• Haunted Jail: Alcatas
  
• Ghost in the Barn House
  
• Gaze at Maze
  
• Smash Halloween Pumpkins: The Challenge
  
• The Chills
  
• Gregor Hills Haunted Hospital
  
• Jaxon The Thief
  
• House Number 666
  
• My Haunted Doll
  
• Axizon Labs: Zombies
  
• The Haunted Exmone Theatre
  
• Rescue Rina
  
• The Haunted Tunnel
  
• Heltons Haunted Hotel
  
• Gaze At Maze
  
• Ghost In The Barn House
  
• Zack Y
  
• Fight For Love
  
• Captain: The Runner
  
• Balloon Azuna

These are all basically the exact same GameMaker Studio game template with a different skin and a couple of things changed. No professional effort was made in terms of game development, using a game construction kit requires no game development talent, and unsurprisingly produces products that have little to no value as games, especially when compared to the work of professional developers who create genuine products for gamers.

It's worth noting this is a special case for Anamik Majumdar, because this is a completely different Yoyogames GameMaker Studio template that's he's ripped off and slapped his name on. He's only ripped off this template once before with Warships on the Halloween Night. In this case, supplementing the horrible game template/asset flip nature of this mess, and the ever present ugly retro pixel "art", resolution is locked and there's no widescreen support, just 4:3 pillarboxed.

As usual, my recommendation is to never give money to asset flippers and construction kit copy+paste cash grabs, so don't reward this one.