Amateur Arena

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Following the sounds of hundreds of cheering fans, you enter the first arena of the game from the ready room. The garish carpets and bright tube lights immediately set the experience apart from any other arena-shooter of the time. This place exists in a future where Nerf blasters have gone from a department store staple to a million dollar spectator sport. Within the neon crucible that is the Amateur arena, expectations are distilled to a pure and frantic loop of scavenging weapons and grinding opponents into the expensive patterned carpets with a well-placed shot.

Not all maps in the game are as smooth flowing as the Amateur arena. Here, the size of the rooms and the level of cover are perfect for both playing offensively and defensively. At no point do you ever feel like you have nowhere to go. While a well designed dead-end can be a good focal point for risk and reward gameplay, the Amateur arena doesn't rely on boxing you in to create tense fights. In fact, most of the vanilla maps seem to be designed with this philosophy in mind, and this contributes greatly to the fast-paced fun that Nerf ArenaBlast is known for.

Within this arena you'll find an enormous slide. As far as central gimmicks go, this high-speed and harmless descent is an enjoyable one. In most other arenas, one would expect traveling at near terminal velocity to end with a respawn, but here you can skillfully steer yourself into health, armor, and weapons. The slide also provides an opportunity to quickly lose a tailing opponent should you need to. When you're not blasting your opponents, you're probably going to spend a lot of your time in this arena trying to get here as it is an attractive venue for gaining tactical advantages. Plus, who could deny their player a little fun?

Many arenas feature these gear-shaped targets that trigger special events when shot. Their effects range from opening secret passages to springing deadly traps. By themselves they bring a little extra interactivity, but when paired with a desirable pickup as Amateur arena does, these targets add extra depth to the arena's flow.

When you think back on all of the vanilla arenas, the Amateur arena is certainly one that stands out both in the visual and gameplay departments. Playing a round in this arena is the purest example of what Nerf ArenaBlast gets right as a fast-paced arena shooter. You can pull this arena up any time for a quick scrap and probably never get tired of it.

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