Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I’m not a big fan of CTF’s. I tend to lean more towards battles when I play, but I would probably play this level just for its appeal…
For appeal it does have. Fawful’s Voltage Cable Malfunction level has a nice open floorplan with plenty of nifty shortcuts and places to duck and hide. I was a little surprised at how I could just go practically in a straight line to get from one base to another, which tells me that noobs will just go back and forth between each spot. However they [the bases] are placed a fair distance apart and it’s not an oppressively straight route so I guess it’s not that big of a deal. And THANK GOODNESS Faw didn’t do any gosh-awful copy-pasting to make it bigger! I’ve examined it and most of the paths are unique. So, layout is okay.
Eyecandy is just wonderful. I’ve always found it hard to use the Tubelectric tilesets well, but Faw pulled off a great blue-silver-purple-black color scheme with primarily the pipe and tube tiles. This makes one think that the details would get repetitive after a while, (which it sort of does) but some nice and clever bg decor solve the problem. I think a good balance was struck of not too many fluff tiles (Which is my problem) or too few (which a lot of JCS’ers struggle with). gj.
I couldn’t rate the music because I didn’t get it in the pack (which surprised me, since I would think someone as seasoned as Faw would remember that :P). There was a link to it, but it’s hard to critique a soundtrack when it’s not there. Ah well. I’m sure it was a cool song anyway.
Events were evenly placed, with 5-6 pickups in most spots and various amounts in some others. Several pu’s were stuck in random locations. Overall the level was pretty neatly evented.
Gameplay? Quite good. I said it was a straight line between bases, but it’s not that hard to stray from the path, considering all the ingenius side paths and passages around. The level was just the right size too, not overly big or minisculy small. It was enjoyable, and I don’t even like CTF maps!
So, where’s my vote? I guess you could say that Voltage Cable Malfunction has won me over to CTF’s. From its suitable layout and clever details to its solid mechanics and balanced playing field, Faw’s latest and greatest release shines like a star. Download now.