vanguard

Vanguard

Arcade, 1981

This shoot-’em-up was one of SNK’S first big arcade hits, back in the early Eighties. It’s quite an exciting game, too – as well as being able to shoot four ways using a four-button layout, the game offered an ever-changing landscape of colourful zones to shoot your way through. Excitingly, these included stages which scrolled diagonally as well as the standard horizontal scrolling stages, enabling new attack formations which really tested your multidirectional firing skills.

Of course, it’s not an easy game as there are plenty of enemies to fight your way through, and their firepower can cut through your own. That’s why the game’s best moments are those that come after you’ve managed to guide your ship through an energy chamber. Not only do you gain temporary invincibility, allowing you to ram through enemy ships, but the music changes to a heroic theme (taken from Flash Gordon) that makes you feel like a powerful space fighter.