Sony’s MMO Vanguard doesn’t feel a day older than three

For no particularly good reason, several of us will be jumping into an ancient Sony MMO called Vanguard, a relic from the ancient days of yore known as “2007”. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and post your character name here to join us. Furthermore, it’s a bonus experience point weekend, so what better time to get started than now? And stay tuned to this space for a game diary in the coming weeks.

When it was released, I reviewed Vanguard for Computer Games Magazine. It was a collaborative review written with Kelly Wand and editor Steve Bauman. They made fun of me for liking it as much as I did. Well, who’s laughing now? Okay, they are. But who’s playing again Vanguard four years later? That’s right. Me.

And lest you think Vanguard is just another MMO, well…you’re only partly right. It has a hearty combat system, varied character classes, a cool collectible card game to model diplomacy, some of the most interesting crafting you will ever do, and a pretty well realized and expansive world. And with only a single server for the US, it’s not nearly successful enough that you won’t be able to find the other people who happen to be playing.