Platform: Arcade
Region: NTSC-U
Country: United States of America
Developer(s): Tose
Publishers(s): Centuri, Inc.
ReleaseDate: 1981-10-15
Players: 2
Co-op: No
Vanguard
Also know as: ヴァンガード | Vangādo
Vanguard is a 1981 arcade horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed by TOSE and released by Centuri in the USA on October 15, 1981. Vanguard is similar to Scramble, in that the player controls a ship which automatically flies forward through scrolling levels. It has a limited amount of fuel that constantly depletes. Unlike Scramble, fuel is replenished by destroying enemies, so running out of fuel is less common. Some portions of Vanguard scroll vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The ship can fire lasers independently in any of the four cardinal directions using the four buttons. Flying into an energy pod makes the ship invulnerable for a short while, allowing both enemy ships and the tunnel walls to be destroyed by ramming. The game is divided into two tunnels of multiple zones each. The first tunnel consists of Mountain Zone, Rainbow Zone, Styx Zone, Rainbow Zone 2, Stripe Zone, Rainbow Zone 3, Bleak Zone, and the City of Mystery/Last Zone. The second tunnel consists of Mountain Zone, Stripe Zone, Styx Zone, Rainbow Zone, Bleak Zone, and the City of Mystery/Last Zone. At the end of each tunnel the player must defeat a boss guarded by two moving force fields with holes in them. Vanguard uses a number of custom sound chips to produce digitized voices and custom synthesizer sounds. The speech is used to announce the name of the current zone or the next zone that is about to be entered, or the words "be careful" when a power-up is about to end. Theme music composed by Jerry Goldsmith for the 1979 sci-fi film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, later utilized for Star Trek: The Next Generation, is borrowed as Vanguard's introductory theme. Vultan's theme (composed by Queen's Freddie Mercury) from the 1980 movie Flash Gordon is used as the sound effect when a power-up is attained.
Trailer: YouTube
ESRB Rating: E - Everyone
Genre(s): Action | Shooter