Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

If you’re downloading this, you’re probably just doing it to get Condemned and City of the Sn00ze, which are pretty much the best levels this pack has to offer. Systematic Crash is also a very solid level (partly for being one of few DOM levels so far) and I have to admit I have a soft spot for Ancient Abyss and Secret Forest Shrine simply for their awesome and rather unique visual style… but apart from that, I’m sorry to say this pack isn’t really all that special. Most of the levels have either very generic design or have some original ideas which sadly weren’t implemented very well. It’s a shame, as I was kind of expecting more out of this.

I was close to giving this an 8.0 for all the sheer effort that obviously went into it despite everything, but in the end it just didn’t sit right with me so, while feeling a bit mean doing this, I’m leaving it at a 7.5 right now. I might change my mind and up the rating later tho’ as a lot of effort obviously went into this.

In closing, take my comments with a grain of salt, as while overall nothing too much out of the ordinary, this pack is by no means bad and certainly warrants a download recommendation. It doesn’t deserve all the 9+ marks it got but I’ll be the first to admit I’m pretty critical in rating stuff so if it’d been anyone else this would’ve probably been an 8 at least. Even if you’re mostly getting it for the levels I mentioned above the other stuff in there is generally solid level design if nothing else and is sure to keep you entertained for a while. ;)

To sum it all up in one neat little paragraph, This pack is awesome. XLM have really outdone themselves this time, bringing the collective community of J2O the greatest MP pack loaded with battles, ctfs and doms. Each level will be honored with a review, then the whole pack itself.

Past of Fortress Renovation

This level uses some amazing eyecandy. With a purplish bg, industrial-natural tiles, a painful but anti-pointless pit, some well-placed ammo pickups and more, many good ideas went into this level.

I didn’t like how the level was pretty small. I never did go over for super-small levels. The warp didn’t cover the whole pit, but this may have been an aspect of level design. good marks!

Fortress Renovation

Another high-marked level using the done-to-death-but-still-some-good Windstorm Fortress tileset. This ‘un is in a fortress newly renovated, with fresh paint [no, it doesn’t really look like paint though], another pit, more nice ammo, and very little to argue with. Good things went into here, and I enjoyed playing it very much. Good one!

The Shrine

Hmm. I didn’t like this as much, in part because there wasn’t really any background eyecandy, the level was also small and had a large amount of carrots. Still, some clever eyecandy ideas were used in the foreground, lending it a somewhat evocative nature. Good again!

Hall of Legends

Another nice level, with good eyecandy using 1ups and purple gems, a neato water/freezie pit, and PU’s in the wall. Nifty design plus good event placage equal a great battelic level.

Hidden Forest Shrine

An AMAZING level, with the Jungle 2.0 Evening tileset. Wonderful tileset eye candy, with waterfalls, junglebuildings, leaves and more, and a small pit or two at the bottom. Kindof small, but this hardly affects the level itself. Great job.

Underground Hunting

L33T stage, using Disguise’s Nature’s Ruins tileset. Features bizarre leaf-and-rock designs, great usage of trees and events. Was another small level, as most of the levels here were. Ho well. Good job anyway.

Headhitting

Yet another good level, with the Jung 2.0 Day tileset, with such marvelous emblems as thick trees, dark caves, lots of hidden passages and a funny text string or two. [you got it wrong, I’m afraid. It was NOT Africa! IT WAS MESOPOTAMIA!!!!!!!!!!!] Minus 15 points for getting the world location wrong [this was a joke, for all you review nutties]. No, this level did not have the “small level curse” that plagued most of the others. It was a great battle, that should definitely make the bash next time around.

Epic Elements

Wow. This was probably my favorite level of the whole pack. It uses Galavant’s Gothic Cathedral tileset in a way I never thought possible. Instead of making you think you were inside a church or a medieval town, it actually gave me the feeling of a small jungle temple. Great greenery, flowers and more were used, making it an amazing pack level.

Untitled Prupel Level (:p)

Another greatest level, using the Desolation tileset. Without the textured background. And I hafta admit, it looks all the better without it! The pipes and composite fencing are used together quite well, and the different orientation of blocks really caused this level to shine. GOOD NUMBER HERE!!!

Condemned

Wow. This also stands out in my mind as quite the notable level. Using the Beach +Evil tileset [which btw was designed by Purplejazz (and Birdie), who built the level, which means that he could do practically anything he wanted with it], it has greenery, ship components, a water area at the base of the level, it rocks too. It did seem small like many other levels, which was a common malady of this pack. Oh well. Who cares?

Time Forest

First off. What’s with the tricked-out name? It sounds odd. Secondly, due to the level of details, it didn’t seem too much for the last battle in the pack. The quality was just great, with plenty of railings, construction signs, halos+events, and monitors [using one of the MEZ tilesets], but the level is the smallest of the pack. Odd…. Still, it is quite a good level, even if a bit small and a bit lesser in quality. Still good.

Now we move on, to the CTF levels…..

City of the Snooze

Hahaha. Very funny title. Still, a great average-sized CTF level with good base placement, an amazing sense of eyecandy, great layout and structure. It was a rocking level, with a unique pink-yellow background that I have never seen before [at least, not in a Colonius level], and yet fit nicely. Good!

Restplace of the Snooze

These levels were predominately designed by Snooze, weren’t they? Anyway, nice level, although there wasn’t really much variety in eyecandy. The bases provided easy commute between, but this is common in many good levels. Nice job on the level!

Forest Green

My second favorite level, Forest Green contains several funny text strings [No kidding…..Hmm……hmm…I LUV Cheese!!!! :)], Good base placement, great events, great eyecandy with trees and all. Very well done. It did again seem a bit small, but oh well.

Ancient Abyss
???? This level has a VERY unusual Singleplayer start pos., right above the Red Base! ?!?!?!?!!! The level has amazing eyecandy, though, using the ever-resourcable Dam Nation tileset. The bases were extremely close together [?!], and structure was an okay issue, but this level was slightly less than the others.

My review would now be done except for those blasted DOM levels….

Systematic Crash [EDIT: Tileset added!]

Another curious title, another fantastic level. Using the IC conversion of Dreempipes, it has a good size, great event placage, eyecandy such as green rocks, silver pipes [and gold ones], water, silver-dot walls and more. This level has some great angles.

The abundance of hidden shortcuts make this level all the better. Not a hugely large amount of original eyecandy, but enough to satisfy me.

Hoven

This was my 3rd fav level in the entire pack and should, in my unestimable opinion, win the Christmas contest hands-down, without a single standing competitor. It excels in this category with amazing trees, light poles, houses, alternate unwalkable roads purely ornamental, and so much more. Layout is nice, and it really gave me a thrill to play it.

The lonnnnnngest _PT32 review to date is wrapped up here…._

Like the italics say.
Quite an amazing pack. No, amazing doesn’t quite cut it. Incredible, awesome, sweet. These are all words I would heartily use to describe it.

There are a few tarnished spots on the pack (the infinite smallness, weird random base misalignments, the missing tileset was a BIG one), but none of them can really stand the test of time.
The truth is, to put it bluntly, Codename: Alliance is the best multiplayer pack out there yet, and I don’t know if anything could ever beat it. Download it right now. It could and will {I guarantee it!} change your definition of gaming altogether.
Time to go play some, so taa-taa-for-now!!!

Rating raised to 9.7, now that tileset is included.

This is a review for just one of the levels in the pack, namely Ancient Abyss. I have nothing to say about any of the other levels at this time and because they’re not uploaded separately, there’s no better place to leave an individual level review.

Every once in a while I bring up how much I love Ancient Abyss, generally followed by weird looks from the audience and no acknowledgement. Hardly anybody remembers this level. It’s a weird experimental stage in Snooze’s level design career that could’ve only possibly made sense in 2008 and we’ve all since moved past it. Well, I haven’t. I remain forever impressed by what this level accomplishes.

The initial impression you get when you first see Ancient Abyss is that it’s a regular, simple CTF layout. A bit claustrophobic, with little room for premeditated combat maneuvers, and full of places to safely camp. Even at this point it’s easy to notice that the visuals are wild. There’s a clear disregard for the concept of tiling. The intended use of tiles is treated more as a suggestion than anything. Tiles are flipped and layered together to create complex abstract patterns. Does it look good? You could argue for either side. The sharp edges, or so-called tilebugs, might bother you, and it takes some imagination to see this as more than a mess. But I think it takes both courage and genius to attempt something like this on such a scale, and to me the result is impressive, interesting, and pleasing to look at, at least for the most part.

But that is not what’s really distinguishing about the level. What is, is the massive over-100-tile drops on either side of the level. Every time you take one of these, you spend about 5 seconds in freefall with nothing to do but look at the scenery quickly passing by. If you find these, fall down one of them, and you’re highly unimpressed, it’s hard to explain what’s so special about them, but let me try.

What you have to understand first is that making a multiplayer level doesn’t always have to be about making a level that facilitates competitive gameplay. Nobody will tell you this, but there’s no rule that a level must strive to actually play well. It can, and that’s great, but that’s only one direction of design. Deep down, all levels are art, and while most aim to be pop—easy to understand and wide in appeal—there’s plenty of room for exploration of other genres.

From a gameplay perspective, these 5-second drops seem like a terrible idea. Nobody reasonable would put them in a multiplayer level. No other level contains something like this. And that’s what makes them so great. Falling down one of these for the first time is a jarring, confusing experience, only amplified by the unusual changing scenery as you fall. You could never see it coming. It feels like finding a hole in the level geometry and dropping out of bounds, halfway expecting that your journey will end abruptly in the bottommost row of the level with no floor to stand on. The terrain looks even weirder and more foreign and it feels like you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, exploring the unknown. When has another CTF level ever offered you that experience?

Of course, the problem with this perception is that it is entirely personal. To you, these drops might be 100 tiles of wasted space with a regular old piece of layout at the bottom. I can’t possibly convince you that it’s more than that, just as I have no way to convince you that a piece of abstract art is worthwhile or a song that sounds like noise to you is a masterpiece, actually. All I can say is that the experience exploring this level mattered enough to make me write this review—years after seeing it for the first time! It felt fresh and different, and it stuck with me.

So is Ancient Abyss a good CTF level? Well, no. At least I don’t think so—I never managed to convince anyone to play it with me and I had little desire to do so myself. Even aside from what amounts to 5-second cutscenes you have to watch every time on the way to collect power-ups, it has 3 full carrots and 2 small ones, which has got to be way too many regardless of the player count, not to mention how easy to camp they all seem. It’s cramped, hard to navigate, and probably just not very fun to play.

But also, yes. It’s unique and catches you completely off guard, and offers an experience unlike any other CTF level, so long as your mind is open to something else than playing another regular game of CTF, and willing to see it as art and not another toy. It’s not a good idea executed poorly, it’s quite the opposite: this is an idea that never had a chance to work, executed incredibly well. I think that perhaps not everything has to be "good" in order to be good.

I just played Systematic Crash… oh geez, backgrounds have so sharp colors that sometimes I thought something is platform I can jump on while it was just background…

i dwnloaded it but winrar said the file
in unknown format or damaged