Nerf Arena Blast

Nerf Arena Blast (also NAB or Arena Blast) is a first-person shooter developed by Visionary Media in 1999 . The game was published by Hasbro Interactive . The rights are now with Atari SA . The game is no longer supported by the manufacturer, there are no more developments from Atari.

Specialty

Nerf Arena Blast is far less brutal than other first-person shooters. No blood is spilled in the game, you play with colorful weapons in colorful arenas and instead of lead balls you shoot small darts, frisbies or balls. Instead of killing other beings, you just throw people out of the game, whereby instead of blood they leave behind a small flag that can be collected. There is even talk of a non-violent alternative to Unreal.

Game content

Single player mode

In single player mode you are a member of the Twisters amateur team. The Nerf Association wants to enable an amateur team to join the professional league. To do this, you must first win a fight against other amateurs in the amateur arena. Later you play against six professional teams in a total of 22 arenas. You play in the three disciplines of point, speed and ball blast. Each team has three arenas in which one discipline is played. You always play alone against five players from the other teams. In addition to the three arenas for each discipline, three teams have a bonus arena.

The arenas

Amateur
The amateur arena consists of colorful corridors. There is only the PointBlast discipline here. With the exception of a weapon and special shoes, this arena contains all the essential things that you can encounter later, so that you get to know them quickly. Even so, the arena isn't overly complicated.

Tribes
The Tribes have arenas in the great outdoors, in the background you can see trees, in the arenas you go through caves, through water and over wooden structures. Most of the arenas are open air.

Orbiters
The Orbiters have arenas within space stations with the most modern equipment. You can see space in the background. Some arenas have reduced gravity in certain parts. The Orbiters have a bonus arena.

Barracudas
The barracudas have arenas under water, but you don't have to swim all the time, most of the time you walk on normal ground, but there are a lot of areas where you swim. Instead of sky there is only water above the player.

Rockheads
The Rockheads have arenas built on asteroids. Here there is a greater risk of falling into space than with the Orbiters, which costs a lot of points. There is a bonus arena where there is hardly any gravity and where you jump back and forth between three asteroids. Since falling into space costs 1000 points, this is the greatest danger.

Tycoon
The tycoons have arenas in which you are between and on top of high-rise buildings. In many places there is a risk of falling deeply, which can cost some life points.

Luna
The lunas have arenas on the moon, but there is no reduced gravity and there is no danger of falling into space. There are many lifts and more teleporters here than in the other arenas. The lunas have a bonus arena that has water. In many places you have a view of the earth.

Championship
The Championsship Arena consists of a large round square in the middle and two floors with corridors around it. With this structure you don't have to search for opponents for a long time, as there are always some to be found in the middle. Due to the differences in height, you can suffer serious fall damage very quickly.

Multiplayer mode

There is also a multiplayer mode in Nerf Arena Blast. From Atari you can play all three game types on the Internet, but the community has developed other game types that can be played on the Internet. Nerf Arena Blast already includes the option to create your own server that is visible either in the LAN or in the Internet. More about community developments for multiplayer mode below.

Game types

PointBlast
In PointBlast you play for points for ten minutes. Points are earned by shooting other players, shooting targets and collecting point flags that are left behind by players who have been shot down.

BallBlast
You get points just like in PointBlast and by shooting balls into certain goals. There are seven balls that are unique and appear somewhere in the arena whenever they land in the goal. The seventh ball appears when a player has pocketed all six balls at least once. When a player has pocketed all balls including the number seven, the game ends. The player with the most points wins. Since the balls are worth the most points, you have very bad chances without them.

SpeedBlast
Speedblast is a race. You have to pass all seven flags one after the other. You get points like in PointBlast and by passing flags. The game ends when one player has passed all flags in the correct order. If you are shot down you start at the last flag passed. Since the flags bring in the most points, you hardly have a chance without them.

The PointBlast and BallBlast disciplines take place in the same arena, except that the BallBlast arena has two (or three for the Orbiters) gates into which the balls can be shot. The SpeedBlast arena, however, has a completely different structure. PointBlast is played in the bonus arenas.

Weapons and other objects

There are a total of eleven different blasters in Nerf Arena Blast . However, there are a few others in player-created maps. The numbers in front of the blaster names indicate the key with which you select the blaster in the game. They are arranged according to the preset order in the game. When speaking of the normal case, it is meant that the player has 100 LP and no shield.

1 Secret Shot
The Secret Shot has unlimited ammunition. She shoots yellow darts in primary fire that do little damage to the opponent. In alternative fire, orange darts are fired, which cause greater damage but are slower.

2 Ballzooka
The ballzooka shoots small balls that bounce around in rooms. In alternate fire, a green sticky mass is fired, causing greater damage and stopping players entering or being hit. However, the range is very small here. This gun loads balls.

3 Wildfire
The wildfire shoots green darts. The Wildfire is a rapid-fire weapon. Ten green darts are fired in the alternative fire. From a short distance, this normally costs an opponent all life points. This gun loads darts.

4 Scattershot
The Scattershot shoots a shotgun bullet. The higher the distance, the less accurate the fire. In alternative fire, the shot becomes more precise, stronger and causes damage in a larger area. Normally, a hit from a short distance costs all life points. The alternative fire costs four ammunition units. This weapon loads scatterball ammunition.

5 NerfCannon (also MightyMo)
The NerfCannon shoots a ball that throws the opponent back several meters. The relatively large ball explodes on contact with opponents, other projectiles or after a certain time. In alternate fire, a weaker ball is fired, but its explosion can be controlled. This gun loads NerfCannon balls.

6 Pulsator
The pulsator fires double projectiles which, if hit at the correct point, cause the enemy to lose his weapon. However, the alternative fire is more interesting. Here mini-balls are shot in rapid fire, which defeat an opponent very quickly. Since there are no disadvantages such as long loading times, inaccuracy, long flight times or the risk of high penetration, the pulsator's alternative fire is probably the best all-round weapon in the game. These waffles load the same balls as the ballzooka.

7 Triple Strike
The Triple Strike is a rocket launcher that fires slow but very powerful rockets. The missiles have an enormous penetration power and so cause a lot of damage. Players who have less than 100 energy units in their suit are often immediately defeated by a direct hit. On the front of the Triple Strike there are three plugs on which the missiles are mounted, so it has to be reloaded if three missiles are fired. In alternative fire, all missiles that are still mounted on the Triple Strike are fired. If 3 missiles are stuck on it, the penetration is so high that a player is usually immediately defeated by a direct hit or a very close hit. The only disadvantage, as mentioned above, is the long flight time. This weapon loads missiles.

8 Hyper Strike
The Hyper Strike also fires missiles. These fly very quickly and cause damage similar to the Triple Strike. However, they are less precise and have hardly any penetrative power. This makes it suitable for close combat. In the alternative fire you can meet distant players through a telescope. This weapon loads missiles.

9 Sidewinder
The Sidewinder shoots Frisbies. If you aim at a player, the crosshairs will turn red after a while. If the crosshair is red, the frisbies rotate so that they hit the player. So if the player doesn't move fast, for example to evade, he is guaranteed to be hit. The frisbies bounce off the walls multiple times, making them dangerous for all players in tight spaces. In the alternative fire you can control one of the frisbies yourself. If a self-directed Frisbie hits a player, he is usually immediately defeated. However, the Friesbies are difficult to control and you have no chance to control your own figure during this time, which makes them an easy target. You can abort the flight at any time and let the Frisbie explode. Controlled frisbies do not bounce off the walls. This weapon loads discs.

0 Whomper
The Whomper shoots pure energy balls that expand greatly when hitting players or walls and hit a certain area, defeating everyone immediately. In the alternative fire an even larger and faster ball is fired. But you mustn't get hit here while shooting, otherwise you will be defeated yourself. Due to the size of the energy balls and their immediate expansion when they hit walls, one should only hit distant targets. In hand-to-hand combat, the Whomper is absolutely useless and more of a threat to the player, as "self-throwing" costs 1000 points. The Whomper is not the only weapon in every arena, it falls in the tribes and in the amateur arena. In other arenas, unlike other weapons, it is usually hidden in some way.

1 BallBlaster
The BallBlast is loaded with balls in BallBlast. At first it is only there to get the balls into the goal. In the alternative fire, the balls are pushed into the goal very quickly one after the other. Logically, it can only be used in BallBlast.

SuitPower + / SuitPower Plus
The Suite Power + gives the player's energy suit back life points that he lost through attacks. There is a large and a small edition of this object. The large one is a yellow structure that lies on the floor and looks like batteries are installed. It returns 50 of 100 life points. The small edition looks like a small yellow open ring and returns 25 life points.

MegaPower
The MegaPower looks like a backpack and gives the player 100 points in the energy suit. With this object you can get a total health of 200 life points, which is otherwise not possible.

ElectricShield
The ElectricShield is depicted as armor. It strengthens the energy suit and lets projectile through only a few points of damage, it intercepts the rest. However, with prolonged fire or fire with heavy weapons such as rockets, the guilt collapses. 1-2 missiles are enough to make the shield disappear completely.

MegaJump
MegaJump enables very high jumps and protects against fall damage. It is depicted as a blue-green boot in the arena.

MegaSpeed
With MegaSpeed the player can run very quickly and jump further. MegaSpeed is shown in the arena as a red-green boot.

Ammunition packages
The ammunition packages are located in many places in the arenas, and their appearance makes it easy to see what they are.

The community today

Community work

In multiplayer mode, there are the same types of games and a few others that were created by modifications by the NAB community, such as Capture the Flag (CTF). There are still a few active servers. Mention should be made here of Sahib's server and the servers of Grumphy's Cave. Over 600 new NAB maps have been created. To z. B. To be able to visit the CTF server, version 2.0 of the CTF-Mod must be installed. Almost all maps, mods and other changes are in the NAB Community Pack. More about the Community Pack below. In addition, the NAB Updater is recommended here, which automatically downloads new packages and thus guarantees that it can always be connected to the servers (and fixes problems that can arise from the Community Pack). The NAB Updater will only work if the Community Pack is installed. A condition for connecting to many servers is also a game on version 1.2 (last patch from Atari). If the game was not already purchased in version 1.2, you can still download the update. The patch is also included in the Community Pack.

Forums and players

There is not a very large, but still active community for NAB for 7 years. The language of most active forums and most NAB websites is English. The biggest community is probably the Ezboard. Players are still online daily on Sahib's servers and the servers of Grumphy's Cave. However, there are usually not very many. Although the game is pretty old now, mods, packs and maps are still being created in the community. The forum is still active.

The Community Pack

The Community Pack mentioned above should definitely be downloaded to play on NAB servers; it contains over 600 maps of users, sounds, textures, new modern icons for the game, a patch for NerfEd, the patch from NAB to version 1.2 and a patch that enables playing without CD. The Community Pack was programmed by the NAB community. Together with the NerfUpdater it ensures that the players are on the same page despite the many mods and new maps and that no problems arise.

demo

There is also a demo version of NAB, in which the amateur arena and the tribes arena for BallBlast are included. So you only get to know point and ball blast. The multiplayer mode is not included in the demo.

NerfEd

NerfEd is a program that came with NAB. It is used to create NAB maps. The program does not run, as it was supplied on the CD, on very many systems. However, the Community Pack contains a patch that makes NerfEd functional again.

Web links

Nerf Arena Blast at MobyGames (English)
www.nerfarena.net (English)
Website of the Community Packs (English)
Atari support website ( Memento from September 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

↑ http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/nerfarenablast/review.html report from gamespot.com (English)

[1] ttp://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/nerfarenablast/review.html report from gamespot.com (English)