Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

FFS, how to review this.

First, I’ll say that I’ve played both of these levels online using the ingame download function everybody knows (I did not download it at J2O). I’ve duelled Jake at TRF and it was quite an intense duel (lost 6-10 btw). I played the other level in some open servers recently.

Tyuka’s Realm Forsaken:

Music:
Sheer awesomeness. I’ve no other words for it.
10/10

Eyecandy:
It is great, almost flawless while unique. It goes very well with the music, even better than most other levels.
10/10
_________Gameplay:
Layout: Quite balanced and the base concept works. There aren’t any campy places and this level is, due to the relatively fast carrot respawn and the fact there are two small carrots, a very aggressive one… camping means your opponent regains health, and both C’s are in uncampy area’s. It is however, possible to camp the RFPU, though it isn’t useful in duels.
There are two RFjumps, one of them is avoidable with a Lizard Copter (while not too difficult), and one of them is almost impossible with Jazz/Lori and still hard with Spaz.
9,5/10

Pickup placement:
Almost perfect, though Bouncers/Seekers are laggy weapons, if this is played on ZD. There is a Bouncy PU, which might lag if shot in the tube, but otherwise Bouncers are very useful in this level. There is a patch of Seekers in the upper left corner (no PU, which is a good thing). The main downside but also upside is that ammunition is very grouped: usually there is only one place in the level to get a certain kind of ammunition. This could be horrible, but in this case it doesn’t matter: The level is small and very uncampy (though the RFPU is campable if the other player has no RF PU, but you might end up being blown up in some cases)
9,5/10

Replay Value:
Hm, what to say… Seeing the level made me speechless, playing it was awesome. It is certainly one of the best levels I’ve ever seen.
10/10

49/50

Penalties: Zero

9,8/10

The other level? If you insist. In terms of liking it/disliking it, this level is totally opposite to the previous one. So here it goes, for ASH or whatever it is called.

Music: Not so awesome, and a sheer contrast with TRF.
It hurts enough to mute it, something I hardly ever do…
5/10

Eyecandy: The tileset chosen made me refuse to take this actually even serious. Feels pretty bland, even worse than the Forest tileset for example because of lack of detailing in the tileset (and being downright unnatural)
5/10.

_________Gameplay
Flow: It works, but the base placement makes this a VERY rushy level, especially taking the two Spaz-only RFjumps into account. It makes the PU’s bloody useless being too far from the bases, (takes too much time to get them)… I actually think it is impossible to retake control back if you lost it. It might also end up in a cat-and-mouse game in the outer circle of the map…
4/10

Pickup placement:
You don’t need them with the bases so damn close to eachother… the PU’s are placed close to eachother but one camper is enough to kill you if you want to get back to the base area.
4/10

Replay value:
Playing a serious round here is a total fluke…
4/10

22/50

Penalties: none.

4,4/10

9,8 + 4,4 = 14,2 = 7,1

DR: Yes, the first level is downright awesome… without a doubt. It is a great level to play at, especially in duels and I think it is the best entry to the duel level tournament until now.
I’ve heard the second one can be either found great or be disliked, with me being in the second group of disliking it. Therefore, you might like the second level WAAAAY more than I did.
On the otherhand, you might find it pretty dissappointing or downright horrible like I did.