Vanguard

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.