Vanguard - Atari 2600 - Retro Replay
5Been ages since playing Vanguard on the Atari 2600 so I took it for a spin to see how I'd do... Took me a few to get a hang of the controls but made it past the first Boss onward to a faster stage and didn't do to hot..
More about the game:
Atari, Inc. released a port for their Atari 2600 console in 1982 and the Atari 5200 in 1983. Vanguard II, an arcade sequel with top-down, multidirectional scrolling, and gameplay similar to Time Pilot '84, remained obscure.
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.