Tech Olive

Back in the early days of first-person shooters, it took a lot to peel me away from games like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark 64 and Wolfenstein 3D, but Nerf Arena Blast (NAB) was one of the few games that managed to do it. I decided it was time to install the 328MB, hard drive-eating, Unreal engine-based monstrosity.

NAB may have played only a tiny role in my gaming history, but it was one of the most unique, even despite the fact that I only ever had the single-level demo to play. The gameplay isn’t really that deep and you may only get to pick between several different Nerf guns, but once you get the ‘Triple Strike’ rocket launcher, you’re pretty much untouchable as long as you don’t accidentally blow yourself up. The game consists of three gametypes; a traditional free-for-all deathmatch, a checkpoint race, and an easter-egg hunt of sorts that span across 21 different playable maps as you fight to become the Nerf World Champion.

It goes without saying that NAB hasn’t aged very well. The graphics in most cases are just colorful, slightly different shaped blobs. These blobs make up the playable characters and levels. Every gametype just boils down to a mindless firefight until a victor emerges. I’ll admit, the graphics seemed a lot better when I was playing it, but isn’t that always the case?

Straight out of the box, NAB is no longer much of a popular game in online play, but due to it being based on the Unreal engine, it actually amassed an impressive online community in its day. So much so that after Atari had stopped supporting the game, the community took over and still issued updates, upgrades and fixes. Even today the server browser will produce a few servers. Still, NAB is best when only remembered. While this was a fun trip to a simpler time in my gaming history, it just doesn’t offer anything else at this point in its life.