Vanguard Review: ... And The Bad

Unfortunately, not all is perfect with Vanguard, though most problems fall under minor irritations. However, the biggest, most noticeable, and most annoying problem with the game is that it's simply not finished. And I don't mean that in the "MMOGs are never finished" sense, I mean it in the "This game was released too early" sense. Performance and compatibility issues abound, and there are features and options that were obviously not intended to be patched in later.

For example, although there are helmets and headgear in the game, and an interface option to toggle their display, they don't actually appear on characters regardless of your preference. It just doesn't work. That's not the kind of feature that is planned for post-launch completion; it's one that just didn't get finished. Other features, like anti-aliasing, are missing entirely - though with the performance issues the game is having, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Speaking of performance, I was fortunate enough to be able to test the game running on three different PCs, all capable of playing other modern games. In every case, Vanguard did not run exceptionally smoothly, regardless of what adjustments were made to the game options. You can find tech specs at the end of the review, but given the systems and the similar issues between them, all indications point to problems with the game client.

Perhaps the worst part of the performance problems is that it encourages the drastic reduction of visual quality to get better playability. Although Vanguard is a very pretty game when the bells and whistles are on, once you turn the detail down the visuals can get downright ugly.