Vanguard

aka: Vanguard (Sendō Butai)
Moby ID: 9806
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Description official descriptions

Vanguard is an arcade style shooter for one or two players. Your goal is to pilot your spaceship to the City of Mystery which is located at the end of a heavily guarded tunnel, and once there destroy the creature Gond. The tunnel is broken up into several different zones, called the mountain zone, rainbow zone, stick zone, stripe zone, bleak zone, and City of Mystery. Each zone features different types of enemy spaceships to deal with, and can scroll either horizontally or vertically. In the mountain zone or stripe zone, you may also come across an energy pod marked with an 'E'. If you fly through this, your ship temporarily becomes invincible to the deadly cave walls and numerous enemies which are trying to stop you. When not invincible, your space ship is equipped with lasers to help destroy enemies. You can fire in four different directions, however your speed is decreased when firing. You also need to keep an eye on your fuel gauge; your fuel will deplete at a rapid rate, and your ship will crash if it runs out. Fuel is gained each time you destroy an enemy, so make sure you destroy as many as you can! When you finally make it through all the various zones of the tunnel and defeat Gond, the game will repeat at a more difficult skill level.

Spellings

  • バンガード (先導部隊) - Japanese Atari 2800 release spelling
  • ヴァンガード - Japanese Arcade spelling

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Credits (Atari 2600 version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 12 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 26 ratings with 1 reviews)

An excellent Atari shooter that introduced many firsts

The Good
Vanguard is one of the best Atari shooter that I played so far, and it beats many shooters on any system. As well as having a decent storyline like most shooters, it introduces many firsts. The Gond has been terrorizing nearby space colonies with its periodic raids of destruction, and the player needs to destroy him. To reach him, they must pilot a spaceship through a series of tunnels with names like Styx Zone and Rainbow Zone, killing all the enemies that get in their way. Like all shooters, you lose a life when you are hit by an enemy, or when you crash into walls.

While you are cruising through each zone, you can look at the map in the upper-right corner. Not only does it tell you where in the tunnel you are, but how close you are to the next one. The graphics in these zones are different so that you can tell them apart. The Styx Zone consists of walls with pointy things sticking out of them, and the Stripe Zone is exactly that, a zone full of stripes. The different sprites are drawn nicely, especially the Gond.

The game can be quite challenging. More often than not, I always missed the ships that were coming straight toward me, because I was just above their line of fire. When you see the Gond, you also see something moving just below him, a scene reminiscent to the mothership in Phoenix. Even if you defeat him, the game goes back to Mountain Zone again, but the difficulty is increased.

As I mentioned before, there are many firsts. Your spaceship can fire in all four directions. This makes up for the increased difficulty, and it sets the standard for future shooters. Certain events in the game trigger nice background music that were borrowed from movies such as Flash Gordon and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Another first is the use of multi-scrolling tunnels. In one tunnel, you are moving horizontally, and then in another, you are moving vertically.

The Bad
The controls are tiresome. Even though this game supports four-way firing, you have to push the joystick in the direction in which you want to fire. Also, there is speech in the original arcade game, announcing each zone. Seeing that the Atari 5200 version of Berzerk had speech for the robots, there was no reason why Atari should not have included speech in the game.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Vanguard for the 5200 is almost the same as its original counterpart, minus the speech that introduces you to each of the zones. The graphics in each zone coincides with its name, and there is a bit of background music throughout the game. The ability to fire in all four directions set the standard for future shoot-em-ups. If you have an Atari 5200 sitting at home and are looking for the best shooter for it, then look no further.

Atari 5200 · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2012

Discussion

Subject By Date
Vanguard ad in Game Machine Magazine June 15th 1981 (Japanese arcade game newsletter) Andrew Fisher (697) May 26, 2023

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Servo.

PS Vita added by Charly2.0. PlayStation 3, PSP added by Lain Crowley. Arcade added by 666gonzo666. Antstream added by firefang9212. Atari 5200 added by RKL.

Additional contributors: Foxhack.

Game added July 24, 2003. Last modified January 18, 2024.