A Fresh Look at Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
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Roughly thirty months since its launch, Vanguard remains a beautiful game. Sadly, SOE has had to compromise some of the beauty to improve performance. The new character models are a little on the blocky side, and I saw more than one NPC who appeared naked from a distance because she wore a tan jumpsuit with too little detail. Character models aside, the landscapes remain breathtaking. Trees and forests look so very real from a distance of 300m or so. Up close you can see them for the polygons with textures that they are, but they still look good. I would say only Age of Conan and possibly Aion eclipse the beauty of Vanguard.
The sounds and music in Vanguard remain as they were when I last played, which is not a bad thing. The music includes sweeping scores to haunting melodies that fit their chunks. The sound effects are better than many games; metal on metal clangs appropriately, and metal on wood gives a satisfying thud. After playing some of the Aion beta and quickly learning to hate my cleric for saying what sounds like (seeilookgay) with every cast of a particular spell, I appreciated the fact that Vanguard keeps spell sound effects to an appropriate mystical tingle without trying to tie in incantations.
