VANGUARD

HIDDEN MESSAGEOne of the enemy objects is called a “Floating Payne”.  Although it at first appears as a clever spelling of “pain”, the same/similar object is unnamed in the arcade version.  It was named as such by programmer Dave Payne.  {Scott Stilphen}

Quickly press and release RESET+SELECT together.  The game will start automatically (you won’t get to see the map), and you’ll have an extra ship (5, instead of 4 - picture #1 and video #1) in reserve!  {Mark Hammer}  If you then earn the 2 extra ships (at 10k and 50k) w/o losing any, some of the reserve ship icons will disappear (picture #2); the game can only display a maximum of 6.

The 1st Atari VCS game (possibly the 1st VCS game by any company) to have a continue option.

BUG: Stripe Zone – In the attract mode, the Barrier may disappear but its laser fire will remain or the Energy pod will start flipping back-and-forth between the normal “E” graphic and a backwards “E”.  This also happens during a game if you start going down the right side of the tunnel but quickly move over to the left when the pod appears (picture #3).  When shooting between the crevices at the Barrier (and the base behind it), sometimes your laser fire will pass through one of them (lack of collision-detection – picture #4 and video #2).  {Scott Stilphen}

BUG: Enemy ships trailing off the screen (from right to left) show a slight wrap-around glitch (picture #5). {Scott Stilphen}

BUG: Repeatedly pressing SELECT causes what looks like the number “531” to flash on the screen.  Players originally thought that this was some sort of hidden message, but it’s only a program anomaly (picture #6).  {Dennis Richardson}

BUG: In the City of Mystery, the top barrier will not harm you as long as (1) you don’t move left or right when in contact with it, and (2) you stay under the Gond’s “face”, as the outer edges are always lethal (picture #7).  If you can avoid the missiles long enough, the bottom barrier will disappear! (although you’ll still see a faint graphics glitch from where it used to be).  When this happens, the points for shooting the Gond will vary (video #3).  {G.P. Thomas}

BUG: If you lose your last ship in the City of Mystery and fail to destroy the Gond, he will be destroyed in the attract mode and you’ll get the points for it (video #4)!  {G.P. Thomas}

BUG: The Difficulty Switches have no effect in the PAL version; the only method of firing offered would be the description in the manual for Left A, Right A (press the fire button and move in the direction you want to fire).  {Scott Stilphen}

FRYING: Infinite Lives - Fry until your ship is black instead of pink (it will either start playing automatically, or on the map screen, where you won't be visible because the background is black too). The number of lives will be random, and not change accordingly when you die. Eventually, your ship will revert to pink, and you'll have to use the other controller, but you'll still have unlimited lives. If you fly long enough on the board where you have to kill all the enemies on the screen, you will automatically veer into a wall and the board will be finished. So you can play more or less forever.

 

  

  

 


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