Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Unfinished Symphony

It comes down to this: Vanguard is not a finished game. It's certainly a game which has come on in vast leaps since the last beta, but one that's also nearly indistinguishable from the shoddy, creaky beta code of six to twelve months ago. You know, the one which generated such bad word of mouth for the title. The graphics engine is perhaps the biggest culprit; it's buggy, prone to glitches ranging from tiny peculiarities up to the entire environment being incorrectly lit or just plain disappearing. The game may be beautiful, but even on a top notch system it runs like a dog; it's a beauty which comes at the cost of framerate. [For the record, our test system was an Athlon X2 4800+ with an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro. Not cutting edge, but certainly powerful enough to play any other game we've thrown at it so far, and even with plenty of options tuned down, the game still struggled to maintain a playable framerate.]

It's not just graphics which are at fault, however. In our time in the game we've uncovered all manner of other bugs. We've been teleported into bizarre locations, lost items randomly from our inventory, found quests which we couldn't complete and god knows what else. Certain areas, visually as much as anything else, just don't seem to be remotely as finished as others. Overall, there's a strong and somewhat embittered feeling that those playing the game now are still beta testers - they just happen to be paying for the privilege. While the phrase "When It's Done" may be the most infuriating ever to be trotted out by a game developer, the sad fact is that Vanguard could have done with being released when it was done, because right now it feels pretty far from that.

The advantage of an MMOG in this situation, of course, is that it's got a chance to make good. Telon has evolved even in the short month we've been there. Sure, many issues still persist, but many others have been fixed. Patches emerge with incredible regularity, and almost every time you log in the team has shored up another problem with the game, all of which is driving Vanguard towards being a far more playable, interesting and fun game. Right now, though, the main caveat about the game isn't the occasional unwelcome blasts from the past in the design; it's the fact that buying Vanguard now is essentially paying for beta software.

In the final analysis, giving a score to this game pains us, because we have to award a score which represents Vanguard as it stands now, warts and all. This isn't a preview, and we can't make optimistic assumptions about things that will be fixed down the line. This is a review of a product which you, the consumer, are expected to pay for, and right now that product has problems. We're harsh on MMOGs at Eurogamer, because we understand the vast investment of time and money which they represent for players, and under any kind of harsh light, Vanguard comes up wanting right now.