The Chase 2                                                                                                      RR: 7.0 A sequel to The Chase here, by Techno again.  And it is large!  In fact, weighing in at 5.8MB, more than twice the weight of Championship Arena, a lot of machines are not going to be able to handle it - I know my controls seemed "laggy".  And the "shooting gallery" arrangement, while nice, seems almost impossible to get to without falling into an inescapable pit...while some upper ramps seem too easy to fall off, to your death.  Full marks for invention, innovation and effort, but I'm afraid this map falls down on the practicality side...

Tempest Remix                                                                       RR: 7.5 Black Dragon and J3Sus worked together on this remix of a nice spacious UT map, and it seems like a pretty good place to explore and play.  I found myself playing the Unreal Tournament version yesterday, and it works very well for that style of combat.  Our remixers have done a pretty good job on weapons placement and the other pickups, I found everything except the doubler and the sidewinder, and it was all logically placed.  The texturing was not of the same quality as in the original; pretty standard  (if appropriate) nerf textures seem to have been used, and it is a shame to loook out of the small windows and see, not a New York at night skyline, but more of the same wall texturing.  But how much time do we have to look out of windows at the pretty views?           So, a smooth UT fragging experience has been translated to NAB, so why not gather together a few mercenaries, psychopaths and kill-crazy aliens, and head on over to a rather useful arena and see who can get to the whomper first?

ISV-Kran Deck 4 Remix                                                         RR: 8.0 B-Ball brings us an interesting and unusual map.  What Nerf ArenaBlast does not usually have is much in the way of problem-solving, but here there are a number of places where you are stuck and trapped until you can work out what to walk on, push against, or shoot at... and see what happens when you do it!           So, a different kind of map, but if you have assorted crazy players with triple strikes running around, the usual excitement can be had too, of course, with the added enticement that maybe you know your way through the doors and hatches better than they do... or maybe not.           The map does have more corridors than average, and even a few smaller paths, where you feel that the characters are having to crouch to pass...but it has its larger areas too, and even some acid (or is it slurpee?) to get killed in if you drop down the wrong side of one trapdoor, or get a jump wrong.  The large glass window showing the largest part of the map is fine - I hope I can remember how you persuade the elevator to take you back down out of there, it doesn't do it if you just jump up and down on it in the traditional manner...           So, pick it up, and have fun working out what you have to do to get round, and then - Let's Play Nerf, as B-Ball's servers usually say!

Pahgio Remix                                                                          RR: 8.0 From Tux_the_Penguin and Tmon, another of their beautifully remixed and lovingly textured playing arenas... and if I say this one seems strangely unfinished, that is only because the arena is supposed to be a bit of a building site!           So, lots of beautiful stone and metal texture work, lovely flares (the glowing effect round the lights), and a two-level map, with all the weapons, plus doubler and megapower, in suitable places.  It looks like a map that will play nicely, a bit more open than some; the outside part is a suitably messy building site, obviously well turned over by heavy machinery, and full of gravel.  Inside things are obviously not finished; here a paving slab is out, and over here a large sheet of wood covers some hole, or spans a gap.  If you have downloaded the other true-to-the-original remixes that Tmon and Tux have been making, then you will need no recommendation from me before rushing off to the site of your choice and clicking to download this one.  Otherwise, well, I recommend it: and if you like it, well there are others by the team that you will like too!

Aggressive Tendencies Remix                                                       RR: 8.5 A nice large new remix from Thunderbird, with a suitably complex three-storey building facing onto a nice warm pool of lava.  The main "selling point" here is a very cool flying disc-elevator, to take you from the ground level, just above the lava, straight to the top.  There is also another flying platform inside, which, with a little care and attention, will take you to the triple strike.           However, I feel it is my duty to warn you that you may have difficulty in using the cool flying disc, because Sammi has claimed it as her own, and is extremely choosy about who else she allows on it.  Thunderbird, since he remixed the map, has been allowed on sometimes... but otherwise, tricky...           Anyway, this is a nice, spacious map with a number of interesting bits, with plenty of ramps, corridors, stairs, and suitably out-of-the-way corners.  Thunderbird has done a good job in giving it attractive textures, and of course in choosing it in the first place, so do add it to your collection!

BabooS                                                                                                                RR: 7.5 Are some of the newer arenas getting a bit too complicated, with rust and gravel and Jupiter everywhere, or flashing neon textures?  Mr.BoBBo takes us back to a gentler time, with traditional nerfish textures and a simple arrangement of rooms that somehow is not quite as simple as it first seems!           It seems a good place for a nice, friendly game of NAB, with a main room that is not too small and not too large, with rooms on either side linked by a corridor that goes up and over, complete with a stretch of glass floor.  There is even another "spare room", which just includes a large block with the credits for the map on the side, to encourage you to visit "NABdotWEB", Mr B's own website!           So, nothing revolutionary, and certainly not the best map Mr.BoBBo has ever made.  It just shows a mapmaker who knows what he is doing, doing what he knows.

Arena_12 Remix                                                                                            RR: 8.0 A first map from Thunder Clan stalwart Diablo, and it isn't a remix from "UT" - it takes its original from the "first person stabber" "The Wheel of Time", a swords & sorcery extravaganza: which may explain the map's alternative title, the one you see on the server listing, Cacophony of Silence.           Going by the demo, the original would have been a massive-stone castle, with a few useful spells and potions dotted about.  Diablo has not taken the obvious course of copying the original textures using the NerfEd stone and brick surfaces; instead, he has opted for a more high-tech metal look, which works surprisingly well, and really goes better with the nerf weapons and power-ups.  This is not a particularly huge map, but it has a basement (with elevators - which perhaps give a pointer to the map's medieval origins by being hauled up by cables at the corners), it has a ground floor, and, using stairs, an upper gallery floor.  And it is just about possible to leap onto the fortress wall at either end, using the megajump!  Just about all our favourite weapons and power-ups seem to be here, and it seems to play very nicely as a fast-fragging free-for-all, with plenty of possible strategies as you scuttle from shield to megapower trying to avoid whomper rounds.           So, if you find Morbias or Fractal a bit simple these days, check this one out; it ought to become a popular location for battle!

HoverCraft                                                                                                        RR: 9.0 FeEdiKo presents, for our delight and edification, a remix of the Unreal Tournament "Domination" map DOM-Wolfsbay, with a massively realistic hovercraft speeding across the bay in the moonlight, propelling fans whirling, radar dish rotating, cabin lights blazing, navigation lights flaring.  The distant lighthouse flashes, the craft's wake streams out behind...           Fee gave me a couple of "sneak previews" of this arena, and you can see them on the www.Nerfarena.com "Screenshots 1" page.  This means that I am hardly unbiased here, but I think this is a really nice map, and that he has done an excellent job on the textures.  Not an easy job, as you can tell from the two textures files you have to download!  The work on the flares is very nice, and the detailing in the cockpit, and elsewhere, is exceptional.  One minor thing is that one of the two ways into the engine room, from the rear, is only open to the shorter NAB avatars; Todd can get in, but Hope can't, even crouching or flying.  Speaking as a dedicated Todd, I think that is a definite plus point!  The whirling fans at the back are splendid; try to jump through them and you vanish, leaving only a points- lozenge behind (I shudder to think what the effect is in "UT"!), and stand too close behind them and you are blown off the craft into the sea, for a rather quick end...  That rotating radar dish on top of the cockpit is good, too, as you can jump onto it, and have the land/seascape whirl past at a dizzying speed, as you rotate.           And it plays well, with plenty of ramps, the interior in various rooms and corridors, and the outside of the craft too with its various gradients.  I don't think there are any great secrets, the megapower on its case can easily be jumped down upon for instance, but for a really good-looking, atmospheric and different map that is ideal to play in for two or more players, you need look no further.

Target Tag 2001                                                                                            RR: 9.5 Not a very big change from Target Tag Original (but avoid TT Original 2001, because one of the target-covers is stuck!), but some ammendments that you can only make after playing a while.  Now the two ends are colour-coded, with the two ends of the respawn chamber colour-coded too, so it is easy to get back to the end you have unfinished business at, and harder to get completely confused as to whether you are attacking or defending!  SLAM has made an excellent map even better - not enough better to change the rating, but a useful refinement.

The Chase                                                                                                         RR: 8.0 Ah, the thrill of The Chase, a first map from Techno!  And a clever concoction it is, with steep stairs, various levels with all the weapons available plus the usual pick-up items.  Ramps etc mean you can get to a central high point, where the megapower and whomper live, making this map ideal for "king of the hill" ("king of the castle") games.           Textures are generally fairly familiar, but used well, and really for a first map this is very impressive, and extremely playable.  As seems traditional, the title of the map has nothing much to do with the actual arena, but it is catchy - find it in your drop-down server list under  "T" of course.  So, a good start.  I suppose if one compares it with the similar-to-play Laser Remix there is not much to choose between them; those corridors with windows and main spiral staircase for the older (by a day or two!) map, some of the walkway arrangements, the wider range of textures, and the fact that it is an original map for this one.  Luckily, there is no problem, we can play and enjoy them both!

Circular Forts (pointblast & ballblast)                                         RR: 6.0  Icedude has done some interesting maps, but this really is not one of them.  I have no problem with an all-hypershot map; the central circular room is okay, though why have at the very centre a healpod-shaped column of water to swim in, leading nowhere and doing nothing?  Outside this room are a variety of plain-yellow corridors, and if you follow them you either loop back to the central room, or end up outside red or blue rooms, the doors of which are elevators; stay on top of them too long and you get killed against the ceiling.  Each of these rooms has a hole in the floor, which you can get completely stuck in - in the ballblast version, this is where you deposit the pointballs.           If you are killed by an opponent in one room, you never know if you are racing back there, or will end up in the other room, as the corridors have no clues.  The ballblast version just does not work properly yet.  All six regular balls spawned for me together in one part of the central room, not scattered around for a "scavenger hunt".  Playability here seems low; if you think it sounds interesting, I suggest waiting for an improved version, especially on the ballblast side. I hate to write such a negative review, especially as this is generally well made, and shows that the 'Dude is coming along nicely as a mapmaker, but I have to call them as I see them.  I am sure that his next map will be a lot more interesting!

Laser Remix                                                                                                      RR: 8.0 B-Ball has made a very enjoyable-to-play remix here.  I am not a fan of the textures from Championship Arena he has used for much of this, I always think they look more like painted cardboard than a "real" bit of architecture, but this is a minor quibble.  The play's the thing!           One large room, or courtyard, with corridors around it - not many doors in, but plenty of windows to fire through!  In the middle, a tower, with a spiral staircase inside, leading to a top with the scattershot - and walkways linking it to ramps up round the outside, and to ramps going up to a topmost level with (of course) the whomper...add little cubicles for the triple strike, the megapower, and the hypershot, throw in the doubler, the shield, just about all the weapons, and you have got a high-intensity arena, well worth adding to your portfolio!

Afterlife                                                                                                                  RR: 7.5 If this is the idea of an "afterlife" Pimp has, then he obviously intends to be a bad, bad boy.  This is not about sitting around on nice fluffy clouds learning to play the harp - this is about running around among the flames, being shot at and sometimes falling into a deep, um, pit!           It is nicely done, with bounce-pads, and hidden doors, and the megajump plus stuff you can only reach by using it.  Bounce up a series of platforms around the edge of the main deep, deep pit and you reach a teleporter that takes you to a very rewarding room...           There are plenty of rooms, nicely sized, and textures of fire and other catchy stuff, so this is really well done, especially for a debut map.  So, plunge right in!

Target Tag Original                                                                                    RR: 9.5 A new kind of map, by SLAM.  I thought long and hard before giving it the highest "RR" yet, but even without the team game elements, for design and size and ease of play it would be at least 8.0 or 8.5.  It re-uses some parts of SLAM's previous map, The Next Level, and follows its example with beautiful stonework texturing, plus rusty metal tones, and a high level of realism.  Remixing this map for Unreal Tournament might make an interesting project; it ought to stand out there, too.           SLAM borrowed the "Target Tag" idea from the new budget title Laser Arena.  It only works for teams, or at least two players working together.  There are identical rooms at both the "red" and "blue" ends of the map.  Pressing the button (behind the shield) briefly opens a panel on the wall opposite, revealing five 1000-point targets... only briefly, mind!   But when I say "the wall opposite", it is actually in the other room at the far end, so two people (at least) have to work together, and of course the other people must try to stop them.  So the defenders need to stop their room's button from being pushed, while staying alert for when the tag-target is open, and the attackers need to storm the enemy base and press that button, and keep pressing it until their side has had enough time to hit all five targets...           The main hall in the middle is huge, and a great place to play anyway, plus there are double corridors to each team "base", and also steep stairs down to another useful room with a selection of good pick-ups.  Get six or more people playing a team game here, and you are likely to have more fun than is usually thought to be legal.  Thanks, SLAM - you've done it again!

Merry Christmas                                                                      RR: 6.0 Another of these retexturings of an old, old map: Orbital Bonus this time, by our friend Icedude.  Please note that you will probably need to download a couple of texture files, available from SLAM: pu-tl-misc and pu-tl-out.  It seems a lot of work to go to for a map that you have really already got, but hey, it is Christmas, and it has snow!  And a strange effect where, when you are on black stone flooring rather than the snow, points tick away at a slow and steady rate, one by one, even while you are waiting for the game to begin.  The stone is slippery, too - black ice?  The use of the Tycoon "team" animation ensures that your computer is kept pretty busy, so you may get a very slightly "laggy" response - but if you liked the original arena, chances are that you will soon get fond of this one as well!

Quickie-beta                                                                                                      RR: 6.5 Ions, the provider of the "13th Monkey" server (with Tiggy's "fat boy" mod), makes his debut as a maker of original maps, with something suitably unambitious, just to check that what he is doing works, I guess!  Far better to start with a "quickie" than to spend weeks toiling over something massive, only to get an "error" message at the end of it, or a "RR" of 2.5!           So, there is always a need for small maps that can be used when somebody in the main server says "Fancy a one-on-one deathmatch?"  Try that in Tweety's Hallways of Heaven or Orbitspire and it's five minutes of searching followed by ten seconds of rocket exchange...repeat until you both have fallen asleep!  Four rooms, neatly linked, useful weaponry, some rather clever texture effects - yeah, if this is the sort of quick map Ions can give us, I look forward to his major projects.

Master Computer                                                                                          RR: 6.0 This is the first attempt by Icedude to do a remix for us; since he doesn't have Unreal Tournament, he has had to retexture Luna Bonus 2; the texturing is rather more adventurous than Justin's work on the arena to produce what he called Sequoia Bonus, but unlike Justin he hasn't changed the weaponry, and somehow, in using cool effects as seen in Matrix Fix Remix, he has made my computer demand a texture file called "commandoskins_m", which is 2.59MB...a bit large!  So on balance, unless you already have that texture file (which Sharpknux kindly sent me), or are a map completist like me, I think you may not want to go to all the trouble of getting this map to work for you.  Still, the map works fine, and it is good experience, so I look forward to seeing what the 'Dude does next!

Floating Island & Floating Island 2                                               RR: 7.5                                                                                     From Sharpknux, a map a bit similar to his own Volcano, but rather more complex.  A nice grassy area surrounded by a skybox, with a South American style pyramid in the middle; grab the jumping sneakers and you can hop from there to tops of pillars with a shield and a megapower, among other things.  Various rocks and pillars provide cover, there are weapons around - a pleasant if unambitious place to exercise your triple strike.           But wait - there's more.  Fall through one patch of grass into a channel that leads to a cave, with useful pick-ups; an elevator allows you to return to the surface.  And leap down the central well, and you reach a lower ocean.  Try to avoid landing on the small raft moored directly below, though, or you will kill yourself!  When trying to board the raft, try to avoid swimming underneath it, as what is called the "giant squid glitch" will grab you and prevent you getting up to the surface until your health has run out!  Jumping off the edges of the top area will also get you down into this ocean.  As well as a pair of power-ups, the raft houses an (invisible) bounce-pad; leap onto it just right, and you can bounce all the way back up to the cave.  I haven't actually managed that, but Sharpknux assures me it is possible, if you look up during the jump!           So, definite possibilities for fun, and also a good map for going the "adminlogin" route, and flying around, though I think FeEdiKo was taking things to extremes, spawning a chain of doublers and points-targets in the sky!           The version 2 was designed to get rid of the "giant squid" and "can't bounce up" problems.  For me it did the former okay, though another player said he did get caught; I still couldn't bounce all the way up from the raft, though, however many times I tried.

-=Final Level=-                                                                                                RR: 8.0 A deceptively simple arena from Mr.BoBBo, at least until you investigate, but a nice place to play.  A fair-sized room, in luna textures, with a raised central area...inside which is another room, including, if you are too lazy to take the outside stairs, an elevator.  On the top is a double flight of stairs leading to the megapower, which is an ideal "king of the castle" defence point.  Quite a few weapons are available - but no health, other than the megapower, until you discover the "secret room", which has plenty, plus the whomper.  If you want to, from there you can actually jump out of the window into space, though I don't think you could ever get back!           I have had some enjoyable games here already, and I expect I will have quite a few more...

Ride the Dragon Remix                                                        RR: 8.0 Another top-quality remix from Tux_the_Penguin and Tmon.  It looks great, with some lovely textures imported from Quake III.  The realism of a couple of piles of builder's sand and gravel really caught my eye!  This is not a very large level, set in a modern... factory?  Office building?  But it plays very nicely, if you bring a few friends with you.  Jump out of windows, into the yard, and dash along corridors, round corners... it all seems very realistic, and you can certainly imagine a "real world" nerf game taking place here, if perhaps not with the owner's permission!           It is a very nicely done remix, though the map on which it is based is not the most original one ever created.  That said, it is certainly worth adding to your portfolio.  Just don't expect to see (or ride) any dragons!  Or is that title a drugs reference?  Well, maybe we'll find this map addictive...

The Next Level                                                                                              RR: 8.5 SLAM has obviously put a lot of work into this arena, and the end result is well worth it.  An original NAB arena that looks as if it belongs in Quake III or Unreal Tournament is an interesting concept, and that is what we have here, with plenty of room in various courtyards, plenty of corridors, a megapower surrounded by lava, a triple strike you need a megajump to reach, and all sorts of fun!           The wildfire is by your side when you spawn, and there are quite a few of them around, all set to "weapons stay" so that you can't pick them up until you are out of ammo, but most of the other weapons are around too, if you look hard enough.  The setting is - well, more a fortress/palace than a castle, but it looks good, with stone work and other special textures.  Look out of some windows and see not just sea, but a couple of distant islands, for a nice touch - though I am not entirely convinced that the view is quite correct, as the fortress wall to the left ought to be in view through one window, surely...?           But it is a lovely level.  If you have any problem downloading it, try http://www.crosswinds.net/~nabdotnet/Downloads/PM-TheNextLevel.zip - and that address, with the map name changed appropriately, should work for most maps.  You also need the "Quake 3" textures file, but if you have got and played Nali Temple Remix, you have it already!  If not, well get it, or download the textures from another part of SLAM's downloads section.  Well worth the effort!

Elsinore Remix                                                                                              RR: 7.5 The original version of this map was never given a wide release, because it was too "laggy"; it gave your computer so much work to do that the poor thing couldn't keep up.  This was due to the rather nice idea of having six tv screens on the walls, continuously looping the six team animations, as seen on the walls of the plaza lobbies when you touch them.  B-Ball has removed them now, however, and substituted six "painting" style screenshots of the six team arenas.  They look good, and don't slow the game down at all...           This may come in handy in a trivia quiz one day: Elsinore was the castle where the action of the Shakespeare play Hamlet took place.  If the original UT level was finished in rough-hewn stone blocks, that would have been appropriate I guess, but here we have our friendly "Amateur Arena" Nerf colours, heavy on the primary yellow, so the arena is not a castle at all.  Oh well, a cool name!  We get plenty of corridors, some lava (not) to fall into, our favourite weapons, elevators, doors, and a secret passageway B-Ball kindly showed me.  You can walk through a certain bit of (grey) wall, and it leads to a rather useful sniper position.           So, a good, old-fashioned new Nerf level, nice and chunky and full of the kind of surprises we like.  And as usual the mapmaker isn't charging us cash, all he wants is to see us using the map now and again - which seems like a good idea!

Sequoia Bonus Arena                                                                            RR: 7.0 This is the Moonlight Bonus Arena 2, decked out in Sequoia textures, and with hardly any flashing light-effects it is a bit of a relief after Alien Planet!  Justin has removed the points-targets, but he has generously added a pair of whompers, which ought to make things even more frantic than usual.           Since it is based on one of my favourite arenas, I think I ought to enjoy playing here, but I can't really say it is any huge improvement on the original.  Still it ought to be a fun place to have a good fight in!

Alien Planet                                        `                                                              RR: 6.5 Justin has retextured Skyscraper Arena here, and obviously had a lot of fun doing it; you don't pick up a Wildfire, you pick up a "Tamefire", and most of the other information announcements have been similarly changed.  Pick up the TS and you are cautioned about using alt fire too much!           Sadly, the textures include the team videos, as viewed in the old arena lobbies when you touch the pictures, and other dazzling, constantly changing bits and pieces.  This puts an awful lot of strain on your PC, as with the original version of Elsinore Remix, so that controls are soft, or "laggy" - and at one point my computer disliked the experience so much that it crashed.  If your machine is made of sterner stuff, give it a go, because it is fun, and you know your way around even if all the textures do look wild.  The points-targets are gone, but you do at least get 73 points when you open the door to the shield!

LightShow                                                                                                        RR: 6.5 This is Barracuda Arena with new textures: "lightshow" textures, like a whomper explosion, pulsating like a rather dodgy nightclub.  Black Dragon has actually made a few useful little changes, mainly adding an extra whomper in a place that always ought to have held something special, and a megasneaker (jump or speed, probably jump I guess), and maybe more, but the pulsating lights on a black background...  "I'm going to change map before I throw up", Thunderbird remarked, which seemed an entirely sensible idea to me.           If you are headache-proof, well, it plays perfectly, and the effects really are cute; the blackness makes it a little hard to navigate sometimes, but I guess we know our way around this arena pretty well by this time!

TimeRift Remix                                                                                              RR: 8.0 Professor FeEdiKo's timetravel experiments were always going to be risky, which was why the tower was built on a small, rocky asteroid, well away from the main spacelanes.  The experiments started out okay, but on day 13, something went badly wrong, and a strange field formed around the station.  Time and space began to rush around the asteroid; strange weapons materialised in the area, and the research staff started to fight... and continued to fight!  Due to the unstable timefield, people who were "killed" merely re-emerged from the timewarp, and even people who fell away from the asteroid itself, despite being "reduced to quantum particles by the timefield", as the master computer termed the process, returned to life!           We can get you into the TimeRift, but we can't promise to get you out again.  I think we can promise you a show you won't forget, but beyond that - well, the best of luck to you!

Gladiator Dome 2                                                                                          RR: 7.5 It's like Gladiator Dome - only there are two of them, joined by a short wide room, which makes the design very like Skippy's Star Command.  Luckily, the movement control is easier here, so you are more likely to be able to grab the weapon or power-up that you want.  I suppose this is in some ways an improvement on the original version - though really it is just an alternative that would have room for more players.  Two large spheres to fight inside means room for four or more players to have a whole lot of fun...so, nice idea, Mikesmaf!

No Exit                                                                                                                  RR: 7.5 High concept from Mr.BoBBo here - a map that looks as if you are playing in a public lavatory (men's restroom, bathroom, whatever...), with the general use of the Asteroid-texture floor tiles!  Being Asteroid-themed, you get lava too of course, and there are even some points-targets to make everything seem more official.  Mr B has decided, quite rightly, to have secret doors in all his new maps now, and if you find the right bit of wall, climb the stairs, and clamber through the air-conditioning ducts, you can get to the scattershot, displayed in a way rather reminiscent of the Barracuda home turf.  And there is a teleportation platform which takes you up into the rafter space, where the shield, megapower, doubler, and other goodies can be grabbed.  While you can drop down through a few of the wider gaps, it is easy to get yourself helplessly jammed in a crevice, so using the teleporter to return is what I would recommend.           So, a nice size of arena, which plays pretty well, if you take a few friends along with you.  As he has become more experienced, both at building the arenas and from visiting other people's, Mr.BoBBo's arenas have been improving nicely...not that they were ever less than good!  I think Forts may be his most popular map still, or the Faces of Faraoahns remix, but this one is certainly well worth getting.

Volcano                                                                                                                RR: 7.0 A rather small file for quite a large map from Sharpknux; I suppose having large areas with the same pre-generated texture saves on file size.  What we have here is - but you are ahead of me, yes?  A volcano.  Run up to the top and, after grabbing the shield, the megapower, and assorted weaponry, stare into the lava just inches away.  But don't fall in!  Then hurry down the side again, but without jumping as you could lose a few health points that way, and on one side you will find a way in at ground level.  Inside is a vast pool of lava that you can actually swim in; indeed, dive far enough and you can find a small cave with a triple strike in it.  Various other weapons are strewn on the ground, or on the side  .           So, it all looks quite playable, though I wouldn't advise it for team games as you are always in silhouette, just a solid black shape.  Not a terrific map, but a nice idea, quite well done, and it all adds to the variety.

Forts                                                                                                                        RR: 7.5 You'll never guess what there are two of in Mr.BoBBo's new original map - why yes, how did you guess?  Forts!  A similar idea to Forts of Independence perhaps, but smaller forts, and some interesting landscape, with a deeper river, a line of hills, and a useful brick-built sniping tower with an elevator you may not recognise until you lean on it and it moves.  This arena is also known as War Forts.  And what other sniping tower has points-targets as well?  It may look like a "Capture the Flag" UT remix, but it is all-original, and the forts fly Tribe and Barracuda flags, not red and blue!           The "Reaper Rating" has to go on the playability and interest of a map, not whether it is a re-texturing of an Unreal Tournament map or something entirely new, so this doesn't rate quite as highly as Mr B's last production, although it reflects greater credit on his abilities.  Nice geography, useful weapon placement, some sensible building decisions - it all shows that his maps are developing well.  He found out how to do points-targets from B-Ball, so here they are, but not overdone, just hidden away on top of the tower.  The clouds here are a different texture from the usual one, and more realistic for it.  Nice water, too.           So, a good open-air arena - but not as good as his next one is likely to be, I expect!

Faces of Faraohns[1]                                                                                RR: 8.0 Wow, this is a big map: 1.69MB, which when you unzip it becomes 5.11MB.  A fortress, set in rolling parklands, all nicely remixed by Mr.BoBBo...the only problem being that, with a map this size, you need a decent number of players, or you run about for ages, through tunnels and caves, up elevators, swimming in streams, jumping down to a different level, without meeting a living soul!           Also known as Faces of Pharaohs, this map may not look very Egyptian, but it is a splendid place to explore.  The fortresses themselves (blue and red) are fairly large (and with few weapons, except a hypershot and a triple strike on the roof), but unlike other maps where you are lucky to get a "back yard", here you get a whole safari park, divided up by a river, a mini-mountain range (with tunnels - one of which may appear to have the "one-way only" bug, to keep you away from the whomper, but with a few tries you can jump over the obstruction), scenic wooden and stone footbridges...but this is a map you need to try for yourself.  A great place for the "fly" cheat, too!  I assume this is a "Capture the Flag" remix like LavaGiant, but with a more natural setting, and larger too.  To get the full benefit, it is probably a good idea to take along a packed lunch, and maybe eat it on the grass near the waterfall!

Shocker (beta) & Final Shock                                                            RR: 4.0 Now, I haven't read the no-doubt excellent Gen13 comic, but from the covers, our friend Rainmaker looks awfully cute.  So, why this terrible stinker of an arena?  Having the structures transparent is a nice idea, and the uneven grey ground with lots of weapons on is reasonable, while the presence of an empty "skin" that can give you 25 points (in the beta at least) when you "frag" is at least, um, okay.  But why are there so many places that have no features to them at all, just a bit of open ground, where suddenly you are dead?  You can't avoid them, and it makes any sort of play, well, a non-starter.  In a word, avoid!

Galleon Remix                                                                                               RR: 6.5 Or Koos Galleon, a rather fine-looking remix from Sharpknux himself; a fine old square-rigged sailing ship in mid-ocean, with a large cargo hold for fine fighting, plus cabins, masts, a plank to walk, and plenty of eye-catching bits, with all the weapons and power-ups you could desire.  But you know the next bit, don;t you?  It begins with the word...           However, some parts of the remixing seem rushed or buggy.  The sea doesn't look like water in the way it does in Frigate, say; it looks like blue-painted wood, and if you fall in, from underneath the surface looks like wooden panels - and you drown strangely quickly!  There are windows you can't see out of (though if you "fly" round outside, you can see in), the sails flicker and vanish with different viewing angles, and sometimes look like wood again, while if you walk into an invisible sail at deck level, it kills you.  Part of the galleon's bow vanishes from certain angles, which is difficult if you are trying to walk on it.  Dropping into the hold onto one crate tends to "bounce" you away invisibly...  At least FeEdiKo has shown me that shooting the lamp at the bottom of the mainmast brings the elevator down, so that works okay!           Still, it is a fine place to explore, and using the "fly" cheat is great fun.  I just hope a revised version is issued!

Matrix Fix Remix                                                                                           RR: 8.0 This new map by Sharpknux is no relation to our previous pair of Matrix arenas; either of those could be fitted into one tiny corner of this beast, and never seen again.  You do get large rooms with pillars, suitable for a brisk fire-fight; you also get a network of corridors as complex as Tweety's Hallways to Heaven, all in living green data-flow.  Luckily it is only the corridors that use that effect; I am surprised that so much text-animation doesn't make the controls laggy, but all seems okay on that front.  Too may rooms to describe, with bouncers, traps, and who knows what else.  This will take a while to explore, but should be worth the effort, okay?

Gladiator Dome                                                                                             RR: 7.5 Reaper's Roman Arena took us back to the days of gladiatorial combat, as seen in the movie "Gladiator" - Mikemaf has not done that sort of arena, instead of a detailed and complex map what we have here is high-concept stuff, and what looks very likely to be a whole lot of fast-moving fun to play!           Take a large dome, and addd low-gravity.  Next, sprinkle it with health and weapons, and a doubler or two.  Then add a whole lot more weapons!  We even have those entirely useless miniature whomper ammo reloads - I wonder what the story is behind them?  Megaspeed, plenty of megajumps which, in low-grav, will get you right to the top with any luck... Instant party!           This isn't the first arena to use domes, but by keeping it simple, and going for low-gravity rather than hard-to-steer-yourself no-gravity, Mikemaf looks to have hit on a more inviting place than most.  The download may be fairly large, but it does include the tlabcomp textures file, which you will need for other maps as well, so get on down, and prepare to have fun!

Nuts                                                                                           RR: 7.0 I think it was in the later days of World War II, when the German offensive called "The Battle of the Bulge" was going rather well, that the attacking German forces sent a message to the American General, suggesting that he might like to consider surrendering, as his situation was hopeless.  Black Dragon has taken the U.S. commanding officer's one-word reply as the title of his new original map.           Actually, the version that I played was not entirely finished, as BD decided to make a couple of changes (nothing to do with the fact that I was pretty close to level with him...); please note also that it makes use of the all-purpose new textures file tlabcomp, which you can get with some other maps, such as Gladiator Dome; it is so big (2.82MB) that it isn't worth including it with every downloads file.           Steps to climb, spherical combat chambers, a pit to fall into, platforms to jump up, using the megajump, to get to the power-ups, a pair of useful arenas at opposite ends... definitely a useful type of deathmatch environment.  At the moment it needs health, a way out of the pit (either by elevator or death-by-lava, but having to hit tab, type "suicide", and enter, rather disrupts the flow), and another respawning point or two, but it is well on the way to being a fun place to fight in!

007 Library                                                                                                        RR: 8.0 Assasinator returns to 007 Basement Remix, and adds the ground floor level, as promised.  I still prefer The Office, but this is a pretty decent arena now.  But how about a few books, if this is a library?  Oh well, maybe they keep those upstairs!  You get more maze-like corridors to run along, now with a special green paint texture that looks very municipal.  Look out for thin vertical lines, as there are some concealed doors that will slide up if you lean on them!           Frosted glass panels add to the fun, it is easy to run into them if you are not looking carefully.  And, shock horror, Assasinator has changed the habits of a lifetime and even included a hypershot...           Not the most original arena ever, but a pretty good version of the maze-type map.  Add a few other players also dashing along the narrow passages, and it ought to be quite high-adrenalin...

Fith Remix                                                                                                     RR: 7.5 From B-Ball, quite a useful-looking arena remix, with its own special gimmick.  Why it is "Fith" rather than "Fifth" I don't know, as the gimmick involves the fifth time you shoot one particular white rectangle on the wall.  Not that anyone sensible is going to shoot it five times, as each time you do, the whole nuclear reactor shakes and shudders, almost throwing you off your chair.  After the fifth time, expect to see a small mushroom cloud emerging from the top of your monitor!  Don't say I didn't warn you... Well, actually, a trapdoor opens then, allowing you to jump down to a lower "sewer" style level.  Don't worry, there is an elevator to bring you back up.           The original "BETA" version had one particular wall, just near the megapower, strobing and flashing and generally making a nuisance of itself.  But the newer version behaves itself nicely - though now that I have explained to B-Ball how to get into that "sewer" level (!), he is planning to make a "final" version as well.  But as it stands, two to four players can have a speedy and enjoyable game here.

007 Basement Remix                                                           RR: 7.0 This is an unfinished map, in that Assasinator intends to add another level to it.  It is based on a level in the Goldeneye game; he copied the actual map from the strategy guide onto graph paper, and then used that to lay out the, um, layout in NerfEd.  Full marks for initiative, and it opens the way to translate any mapped "arena" from any first-person shooter into Nerf, if people have the time, patience and enthusiasm.           As it stands, this is a perfectly reasonable brick-lined basement, with narrow corridors and lots of twists and turns.  You get the shield and the doubler, but only half the weapons; the triple strike (and its ammunition) gets hidden away in a secret room, though this has been given two concealed entrances.  Just stand against the wall in the right places and the bricks slide back!  It is all a bit of a maze, with dead ends and very few landmarks, so adding an "above ground" level will be a great improvement.  Not a greatly inviting arena on its own, but nicely done, and showing that the newest addition to the NAB team of mapmakers has a good grasp of how to create a decent arena.

The Very End of You                                                                                RR: 7.5 Assasinator warns that this may crash you out of the game if you play it in Single Player mode, giving you the "General Protection Fault" message.  It seemed perfectly stable in Multiplayer, though.  This is based on a popular Quake III level, which Assasinator (I quite like it when people shorten my name from Custer to "Cus", I wonder how he feels about such time-saving?) built from scratch for us using NerfEd,  with suitably upbeat lighting.           We are in deep space, and I am glad to see Jupiter visible in the background; I always feel deprived if such a level isn't set close to that looming planet!  There are two main metal islands, with between them the wildfire, scattershot, pulsator and triple strike.  There are various bounce-pads, and a very useful cube from which someone with sniping ambitions can pick off his opponents at his leisure...unless somebody else hits a nearby target, in which case he gets squished!  A smaller metal raft moves between the two main areas at very high speed - jump in the air at the wrong moment, and you tend to find yourself floating to your doom!           I tend to prefer maps where I don't end up floating to my doom, but if you are a fan of The Longest Yard, SpaceNoxx, Injector, and Asteroid Bonus, then this arena is going to make you very happy.  Why, choose the right bounce pad and you can probably even get to the megapower!

The Office                                                                                                         RR: 8.5 How was The Office today, Dear?  Kind of you to ask.  Assasinator has been inspired by The Matrix and Perfect Dark to produce a rather splendid arena here, with many levels, rooms, and weapons, based in a nicely convincing office block.  It may not have an outside (but then, Philistine Temple didn't have an inside...), but there are toilets, computer office space, a boardroom, a nice large downstairs area, elevators, front stairs, and even a fire escape!  Most doors are pretty obvious, and open when you get close to them; explore enough and you should find every weapon bar the hypershot, which our mapmaker doesn't seem to like to use, plus a shield.  The washbasins may be a little strange, but there are mirrors, and stalls, and a place that I like to think is the mailroom.           So, I think this is the best of the big A's initial three-map offering, all available from his site.  Blast away in the Matrix-inspired main hall, or go exploring for the more useful weapons, and the (slightly) hidden ways up and down.  It looks as if this could well join the rather select list of new arenas that get played a lot!

Night Op Remix                                                                     RR: 7.5 From B-Ball, an interesting luna-textured remix, with a nicely atmospheric amount of mist.  This is only thick in one particular room, and elsewhere just tends to make the weapon you are carrying appear as black.  It may, as mist does, slightly slow things down, but only very, very slightly, at least on my machine.            There are three levels, with useful ramp access between them.  The whole thing seems to work fine, though one does sometimes wonder what difference using these ready-made Nerfish textures does make, as in Unreal Tournament this may appear grim and gritty, stained and rusty, while here it is as clean and bright as a new pin.  After all, our Fetid Sewers Remix looks like an advertisement for toilet cleaner, while the screenshot I have seen for the UT original lived up to its name!  Anyway, lots of corridors to run along, and a few other players on the scene should make for some trigger-tweaking surprises as you go.  So, another good arena to choose from - I guess we must be living right!