Game: "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes"

Platform: PC Windows Vista/XP

Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment

Rated: Teen

Thomas Jefferson said he was a great believer in luck: The harder he worked, the more luck he had. He might have enjoyed "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes." Unlike top dog "World of Warcraft" or the "Lord of the Rings Online" game, "Vanguard" is difficult to play. In fact, it seems designed for hard-core players at the exclusion of casual online gamers.

The game world is huge. It takes place in Telon, which is divided among three massive nations separated by oceans. One has a European theme, one is Asian and one is a desert landscape. Nothing in the world is just scenery. If you can see it, be it a windy mountain peak or a sunken ship, you can explore it. You also can become one of 19 races and 15 character classes, so there is a lot of variety. The game looks fantastic but requires an incredibly high-powered PC, plus an utterly ridiculous 17 gigabytes of hard-drive sspace.

The bad part is that you basically must figure things out for yourself. Even the tutorials are not especially helpful. If you die, you will either pay a huge experience point penalty or have to sneak back to your fallen body to retrieve your gear — not easy if the monsters that killed you are still around.

If you don't want to be an adventurer, the game has three professions you can follow. Crafting requires a lot of quests and training, plus the right tools, recipes and raw materials. That makes crafters special, as there are few people making higher-level artifacts, which means big profits for those who become masters.

Gathering, too, requires training, tools and quests. Crafters need gatherers, so it's profitable also.

Finally, you could become a diplomat. Diplomats go on many quests and hone their skills, which involves playing a card game similar to "Magic: The Gathering" or "Pokémon." At higher levels, diplomats earn more cards and more active slots to play them from. The diplomat's career is extremely fun and involves solving mysteries and fighting in secret shadow wars.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on hard-core players seems to have kept the masses at bay. Sometimes you can play for hours without seeing other players. The large number of group quests and the difficulty of the world can lead to frustrating "looking for a group" wait times.

If you're willing to commit time and effort, "Vanguard" offers great rewards. If you just want to hop on and have fun, you should pass this one by.